we are back passion to profession brought to you by my good friends at ebay excited for today's conversation i'm joined by jameson long at port city sports collectibles jameson and i have had a lot of conversations on the stacking slabs network this will be kind of the first completely focused on his career journey we got a chance to catch up before we hit record and the hobby is booming and i think things are going quite well over at port city sports collectibles but without further ado jamieson welcome man how are you doing well brett man it's good to be back on the show it's it's been a while so it feels good to be back on and ready to rock and roll with you today man yeah so maybe just like talk about you've changed locations ever since we spoke what's what were the reasons for the change how's the new space treating you and your customers man it's man i've been blessed beyond what i could ask for honestly when we moved into this space we just felt we opened the old shop it was about two and a half years before we moved into this one which was february of this year fifteen hundred square foot feet we you know wanted to stop start kinda modestly and not kinda over overhead ourselves out of the gate but you know as any new business takes a little time to get going but we finally kinda i would say hit our stride after the end of probably year one and then it just kinda business just kept trending upward and then as we started to do events and things like that the shop would get busy and busier and busier to the point i think our last trade night i think we had people outside on the sidewalk because we couldn't get anybody else into the shop and we almost felt like it was getting to the point of detriment where okay we were getting too busy where like people who maybe had anxiety of tight spaces or didn't like to be in big crowds we were almost hurting ourselves so it was kinda felt like it was time okay we already kinda knew it we were kinda looking but we also didn't wanna rush and make a bad decision and just as we started looking and we wanted to make sure we kinda wanted to stay on this side of town and we kinda wanted to stay kinda close if possible to where we were and i would say the lord just opened up things for us and literally like three buildings down from where we were almost six thousand square foot facility opened up and it just felt like all the pieces kinda fell in place for us had some great counsel with some some guys i know that own shops that you know you always wonder like okay am i making a decision am i is am i jumping too big lot more expenses comes with that but i think a guy you know very well and a close friend of both of ours mister bannister who's been a great confidant for me in the space and someone i run a lot of things by when i'm chewing on decisions he encouraged it another guy i know patrick down at cards of the cages in greensboro who opened a big facility he encouraged it and man it's when we opened this spot it was like we put gasoline and lit a match and then it's been just off to the races you know i think i talked to you a little bit before you know we'll we'll do in a day sometimes what we used to do in a whole week in the old shop and it's just super humbling you know honestly and the best thing about it is just seeing how many people enjoy coming to the space spending time in the space and just just the opportunity that we are to be ambassadors and just kinda facilitate just a communal space where people can come in and join the hobby doesn't matter whether you're collecting basketball baseball disney wrestling ufc and whether you're spending five thou five dollars or five thousand dollars we try to make sure we have something for everyone and we try to make sure that the experience is universal for everyone so we're gonna treat you the same whether you're digging in a dollar box as whether you're grabbing a box of definitive definitive or dynasty off the shelf we want everyone to have that same experience when they come to port city and we think that's what we bring to everyone so it's we're just super blessed and humbled that people choose us when they have an opportunity to choose and it's been a lot of fun just seeing the growth of the hobby in the shop i think in a lot of cases being an entrepreneur sometimes it feels lonely and isolated you have to make these decisions that involve finances it involves people you're ambitious you wanna grow you wanna keep making what you're building better you mentioned ryan bannister like how how important as a first time hobby shop owner how important has the counsel of guys like ryan been especially opening up a shop expanding moving expanding to a new shop in this hobby man it's been i mean it's been crucial i think if if you don't use resources and people that's been put into your life you're doing yourself a huge disservice you know i think many times as men and guys we can be prideful and be like oh i i can do this all by myself i'm smarter better you know all those things and it but you know one of the things even though kinda you know roughly around three years we've been doing this now i've been in the hobby for thirty so i've been able to create a lot of great relationships along the along the way you know ryan is one of many that you know i forged a great relationship with lawrence daggett out in texas who owns i don't know how many shops he owns now maybe twenty you know ryan card collector two is another one you know just a lot of guys the list is too long to name everybody so i'm not don't wanna you know leave anyone out but i mean it's just it's been crucial just to learn from mistakes they've made along the way and successes you know watching them on social and you you know seeing some of the things they're doing you know and and kinda taking a piece of each one of them that maybe not everything they do you wanna do or fits your personality or the culture of your store but i think if you learn a little you learn from the best and you take little pieces of all that and then you kinda wrap your personality and your culture around it i think you'd be silly not to do that i mean there's a lot of smart people a lot of people that are smarter than me in the hobby and i just try to glean off a little bit of them and then add our own flavor to it and not that everything we do is successful but i think you know a lot of those things we've been able to bring into port city and it's really helped our our growth and our our development as a shop and you know me as a shop owner i wanna go all the way back to you making the decision to leave corporate america i have received more messages than ever before from professionals outside of the industry because they listen to content like this and they talk to me about leaving their very very successful well high paying job that they've been at for you know ten fifteen years to go plug into a hobby business start something on their own you made that decision you weren't unemployed like you had a job like what was the moment for you where you realized that you were done doing what you were doing and your mindset your your heart was fully invested on kind of where you're at now yeah so for me like at the time i i would say my journey might be a little bit different than others mine was probably more of one of a of a spiritual one where i was just i was i was you know i was doing well but i was also kind of a slave to corporate america and i would say i was like a slave to my own ego where i was so singularly focused on climbing the corporate ladder proving my success and like just kinda justifying who i am and who you know and seeing that my value was in my corporate career and look at me look at all these awards i've done look at all these sale because i was in kinda high higher end sales look at look at how great of a salesperson i am and this and that and having the being in the country club having the fancy cars but i would say it was more of like a heart change for me where the lord worked on my heart and it made me realize that what i was chasing was not that important the more important thing was being available for my family being a good dad being a good husband and and being able to spend quality time with my family and being in control of my future not letting like a company dictate my future and so when i started it wasn't anything about money it was about i think feeling like i needed to be obedient to what the calling was for me which was not to be so self focused but being a better dad and a better husband and being more available to my my family now through that it was when i was sitting down talking with my wife because of my experience in cards and i think just my understanding of probably economic markets and sales and stuff i was like you know i think with cards i think i could at least until i figure something else out we didn't know what it was gonna be because we had kicked around a couple other things i mean i had gotten like i talked into tropical smoothie i've been awarded like a whole region of tropical smoothie i mean i basically had a tropical smoothie franchise at my fingertips all i had to do was sign the paperwork you know and i had i think they were willing to give me like seven points and stuff but then i was like oh but then i'm gonna be in the exact same position i am i'll be married to the store da da da i was like i think i do cards until we figure out really what this looks like and so that's just kinda how it started it really just started online just through relationships buy sell trading you know really you know a lot of my personal stuff's at the higher end of the market so focused on the higher end of the market and now it was then the covid boom happened and you know it was like here's it is this crazy thing i left corporate america i was making great money and i'd step back to try to kinda step back from the money in the limelight to focus on my family and it just kinda i made more money that year than i'd ever made in my life because of because of the what's what happened during the covid boom you know it was crazy and then you know as that subsided and i got a lot of good years at home of my family like reconnected with my my kids and my wife and really got into a better space spiritually and mentally and just kind of more holistic health kinda felt like alright i think it's time to go open a shop now you know it felt like it was time to go back out but like do it differently and so we opened a shop with the intent of really having a great space for the community places kids can come place where people can enjoy the hobby place where my kids can work alongside with me and just really bring a barbershop family style community space to the hobby in wilmington that can be enjoyed by all kids can get off their devices they don't they're not plugged into video games all day they're spending time with people and community and creating relationship and kind of organically we built kind of port city sports collectibles to kind of what it is today just through those kind of core principle values i think is just focusing on the experience focusing on people focusing on community and just really enjoying one another in this great hobby that we all enjoy i think you said something in there about this like phase before or you you leave your job you before you open the shop you're just selling cards online timing was good with the boom i think a lot of times people don't realize who want to start business who are in cards that those cards can be those sales from those cards could be means to get start up capital to then you know kick start your journey whatever you're doing in this space like how how important was that year of selling online like mixing it up with the right contacts how important was that for you in getting port city going i mean i was honestly that was one of the toughest transitions is is coming out of this like full collector's hat like just buying stuff i like because it's cool and now like understanding no like you're buying to support your family now like this is this is your main means of like buying food and paying for your house and you know everything that comes along with it so yeah it was kinda like i had to really shift and i had to make a tough decision on like some key pieces probably in my collection was just to like alright like you need to make sure like there's a nest egg there for whatever may happen and so yeah i mean there were some nice pieces that i sold just in order just to be just to be financially wise and have enough liquidity available for my family in case an emergency happened or things like that also to have enough money on the sidelines if the right deal came along that i didn't have to like panic sell and take less for something i was already prepared so like to get your your ducks in a row ahead of time because one thing like we do here is like like we say like there's really no deal that's too big like we're we're ready to buy any deal that comes our way basically but i doubt it doesn't happen overnight you have to prepare yourself for that that wasn't the case on day one necessarily but over time of being smart with our resources and our capital and making wise decisions we may have been able to get ourselves into that position so you know a lot of times you know when people do come to myself as well asking hey i'm about to open a shop what should i do i would say man just make sure you have your capital available and whatever you think is enough capital is not enough capital get more get more because the last thing you wanna do is a big great deal come and you're not able to pull the trigger on it or going back you have to panic sell stuff and so you're actually losing profit because now you're taking less on cards you shouldn't because you're scrambling to get this deal together unless you were rather than being wise along the way and taking profits when they were available capitalizing on deals that were in front of you and then having and then taking portions of that money and setting it aside for okay either a runny rainy day or when that person walks in and says i'm ready to sell your my whole collection and it's a six figure collection or a high five figure collection and the last thing you wanna do is be like i would love to buy this collection i just don't have the money right now and then the guy down the street gets to buy that collection because you didn't have your ducks in a row so that's what i always advise people is like make sure your capital is ready and whatever however much capital you think it is is not enough get more so so the i wanna i don't wanna open up some sore wounds because the ends justify the means but do you remember a specific card during that boom when you were selling that helped fund kind of you opening your store do you remember a specific card that was in your collection and what i'm trying to do is get individuals listening to understand maybe some of the sacrifice they have to make if they wanna do this full time and do it at a level that they feel comfortable like do you remember a specific card that you look back on that you had to sell but at the time like that selling that card was critical for you to take that next step man there's probably not enough time in this podcast for me to lift out everything i sold way too early but i mean you know i mean you know some of the stuff i've owned i mean you know there's you know at one time i probably had four or five steph curry logo man autos that are all probably seven figure cards at this point you know that have i sold along the way don't get me wrong i did very well on them in comparison to what i bought them for you know there's you know i remember you know i was one of the probably one of the first guys like really big into high end soccer at least stateside so i mean i was buying you know flawless messy patch autos you know and he doesn't have a lot of them but i was paying under five thousand dollars a piece for those cards those are probably four or five hundred if not more thousand dollar cards now there's probably not many kobe bryant's i haven't owned in some shape or fashion you know so i mean the list goes on and on i mean you know if i had bought and held all those cards over time would i be in a better position yeah probably but at the time that was just kinda what was needed and like i tell everyone like sometimes there has to be sales that create progression of value you know what i mean like someone has to sell a card for ten thousand for the first time for it to be twenty thousand the next time for it to be fifty thousand the next time for it to be a hundred thousand the next time so it's all part of market maturity you know it's like it's no different than a beachfront condo in miami that used to be ten thousand then it became a hundred thousand now it's a million you know it's the same thing with real estate so you have to have those sales along the way to make the market mature so you know i could i could sit around and be like oh man if i had just held every card i ever had but sometimes those cards helped by other cars they helped my other cars they helped my other cards so i try not to stew on that and look at that but there's i mean there's a long long list but anywhere from messy flawless to curry logaman autos look kobe exquisite you name it messy super fracture autos i mean i've run the gambit of it all man and it's it's it's been cool to say i own some of that stuff but it's just all been part of the journey along the way so that's a good perspective to look at it and when you think about kind of your former life and your former career what what skills are transferable like what do you are there moments in building port city when you look at like decisions you're making or talking to customers or you know maybe working in in the back like that you something triggers for you and be and and like man i wouldn't have been able to get to this point doing what i'm doing or working on what i'm working on now without like those skills that i inherited in that time that i spent working in corporate america a thou man a thousand percent i think you know the company i worked for was was a very good company and the reason i had to left leave was not necessarily their prop their issue was mine and but i learned a lot of invaluable skills i mean one of the biggest thing i think is culture it's the culture that you create inside your business with your employees and that's something we really guard and i'm very very guarded about that i mean i'm you know if anything we're probably understaffed and that's just i'm so worried about bringing someone in that will disrupt the culture of our store you know it's like a family in here and that's how we that's how i kinda came up and that's how i wanted to be in here so like we have a great time with one another i think people can feel that when they come in the shop and they wanna be a part of that because we joke and we have fun and we laugh and everybody's got a nickname and we're just like having a good time and it really i think creates that that barbershop locker room type feel where you feel a part of something or a team or and and so i think that comes out and think people can feel that it feels different when they come in here maybe to some some other shops i think the other things is and i talked about this with my guys all the time is the little things aren't little they make a huge difference and so i don't know how many times people come in and tell us about maybe negative experiences they've had in other shops or they've been in a shop and people just dismiss them or they don't talk to them or they they were in a shop for fifteen minutes no one said a word for them for here you know the guys know like the minute someone walks in they probably are hit with like four hellos you know what i mean it's like i don't know if you've ever been to moe's southwest grill you know where everyone's like welcome to moe's welcome to moe that's kinda like it is when you come in here you know but but but but what i tell the guys is if you say hello to someone no one can ever say no one spoke to you we always it's we always greet someone and ask them what they brought them in today and it may be nothing i'm here to look around but when you remove that initial barrier what's gonna happen is now when people are ready to talk or ready to ask a question or something they know the door is open like hey great just look around here's the lay of the land when you're ready for anything just let us know we're here to help you and so those like little things like that just go so far with the consumer i think and it's just little things like that that i think you know if that some shops not all shops there's a lot of great shops miss out on and it just amplifies the experience that the customer has so really focus on culture and just really tearing down the walls with the consumer and just being available and open and just trying to be there for them when when they need help in the shop i think those things go a long way how important have you found it to not only just create the experience and say hello to people but like actually get to know those people like understand their wants what they collect if there's a new release day like having a hobby box that you know they'll wanna buy because it falls in line with kind of what you know about how they collect like how much time do you spend like understanding the the customers be in one because i feel like the more you kind of absorb who they are and customize the experience for them it increases the likelihood that they're gonna come back into the store and make more purchases over time like how important is that for you and and your team oh yeah i mean we it's critical i mean there's definitely cards we get like we buy a lot and there's cards in there we're like we already know who's gonna buy these cards and we like and and we'll text them or we'll message them on instagram or you know like text them or call them and say hey man just wanna let you know we got this card in i haven't pulled aside for you unless you tell me you don't want it and you know and that's just knowing your customer base and i think that makes them feel special and like you're in tune with like man that's awesome like they thought enough of me they know like i may want this card that they're not even putting it out for sale they're contacting me before and that's just knowing your customer and caring about your customer and caring about your customer base and so yeah that's a big part of it i mean we we get lots in and we can pull a card out and be like oh we already know who's gonna buy this one you know what i mean and that's that's just you know knowing the base being in tune and that also doesn't happen unless you have repeat customers because in order for you to know your customer you have to establish that relationship with them and so that's another thing you know i think that's a little bit of a secret sauce to our recipe and one thing i talked to the guys and even to the customers is like we don't want this to be a transactional relationship we want this to be a relationships that transactions occur during the relationship but if we build a strong foundational relationship that's the key to it and so you know we have so many customers we see them three four five times a week you know they we're only open six you know we didn't see them four or five days a week you know and and and when we don't see him for three or four days and we reach out you know hey man just checking on you you know it just lets them know like hey we're in tune with you man we know you're usually here just wanna reach out make sure everything's okay oh you're just busy week cool man just you know we know we usually see you multiple times a week just wanna make sure everything was going on everything was okay with you and i think those little things matter i also think you know something you didn't really ask about this but i think another cool thing that i've noticed since port city we've opened it is just relationships that have been created in the shop from people that never knew each other until they came into the shop and what i mean by that is there's guys that go golfing now with each other that had this space not been created they wouldn't know each other or they go out to eat or they go watch a game together or they come to each other's houses or whatever or they meet each other here and they didn't know each other before this space was created and so that is like you know i talk to my wife often about it i was like that's one of the coolest things is to see these relationships that have been forged in this shop and again the cards are cool and the cards is what brings us together but it's where you see this human and i think a lot of people are clamoring for this especially like coming out of covid right not super digital and people were able to connect over podcast and things like that but i think even yourself i'm sure as you go to shows and you go to different events or maybe it's a wrestling show and you connect with people that have either man i've been listening to you for so long it's so great to meet you in person or you've done a deal and everything's been through mail but then you finally get that human element i think it's still what ties everything all together and really brings the full experience together and so being able to see that lived out in the shop on a daily basis is just something really cool that's amazing that you call that out and i think just as a brand guy i am not sure there's anything more important a business can do than connect to people like that like there's there's no upfront money to port city for making that happen but the way that your brand can make people feel by making that a possibility is unstoppable so i love that call out and you mentioned that your team is pretty lean like you are very focused on the culture obviously like you're a busy guy there's a lot to that goes into running a business how are you like figuring out at this point how to like specialize your time versus like offload some of that responsibility to other people or systems that you're building maybe talk about like jamieson the owner and your time allocation and how you're managing it yeah i think it's critical because there's only one of me right and so with some of the busyness that can get bogged out that can happen in the shop it's very easy that my day i can get trapped out front not that i don't wanna be out front because i do but it's very easy for me to get trapped out front and lose perspective of what needs to happen on the back end and i am the owner and so from that perspective there's a lot of things on the back end that fall on my plate that doesn't fall on the guys out front plate so one thing i've really focused on especially since we moved into the new shop is really empowering the team and not only just empowering them behind the scenes but empowering them in front of the consumer so you know sometimes like someone will call and they'll ask for me right but hey just wanna make sure you were around i'm bringing in some stuff to sell today i'm like yeah i'm here but guess what you know what you can actually talk to anybody because everybody out front has the same ability to buy so you know i might be busy with something i don't want you to get held up so any of those guys out front can help you with what you need but if but if if they need me they'll grab me or check-in if i know that person comes in i'll go out just to say hey man so glad thanks for coming in i see you got hooked up with jeremy or christian or graham they're gonna take great care of you and if you need anything along the way you can just let me know k and then i just kinda leave it at that and i try to step out and let those guys feel empowered because ultimately you know who knows what the future of port city looks like it could be another port city somewhere and so i have to build the team and i have to create other leaders that can potentially step into those roles if we do open a second or a third location so and then a a huge part of my day is being able to source more product because of how quickly we're starting to run through products i know from like wednesday through saturday of last week we went through ten cases of bovachrome baseball that's just on the shelf selling boxes we don't do break we don't do breaks we don't do breaks anymore we can't we don't we don't have enough product we we run through it so it's just sourcing and trying to resource that product and getting it out on the shelf and so a big part of mine is just being able to restock and you know i yeah kinda going back to my career at the company i used to work for and as you progress up the ladder one thing that they always impressed on me is as you move up you have to get off the field because what happens is when you're a player on the field your your view is very small you can only see what's in front of you that's why the coordinator sits up in the press box because he sees the whole field he sees everything that's happening on the field and why you think you were open because you beat your defensive back you don't see the safety that was sitting back there waiting for you so i have to be able to get up in the press box and see okay what are we running through real fast what are we not running through as fast what inventory is doing well for us what inventory is not doing well for us what do i need to get more of but if i'm out front just buying and selling cards all day it's not that i don't wanna do that i do try to do that because i wanna stay in touch with our community but there is times i have to pull myself off the field get in the press box see okay what's best for the holistic view of port city where do we need to do events where do we not need to do events where do guys need extra time off so they can recharge their batteries where do we need to get more inventory where do we need to reallocate assets if i'm not spending time doing that then i'm not doing my job and i'm not leading the ship as well as i can so i have to manage my time from yes i need to be down on the field as a coordinator and see and be in the guys and be in the mix and get a pulse of the store and then i also need to take the time to get in the press box and take a more holistic view of what's going on remove myself from the heat of the battle okay and how can we best direct this ship moving forward for port city to align itself to have the most success not just today but six months a year five years from now i wanna get up in the box and put your coordinator headset in there is so much there's so many decisions i think when and i this is a world i have no idea about and that's why i'm interested in learning from you there is so many decisions that have to be made regarding inventory like you have to have cards in your cases that singles that will attract people you have to have cards that you know will sell well you have to have allocation you have to decide when to buy new boxes because you just sold ten cases of bowman chrome baseball like how do you think of like how have you gotten have you refined your approach just going through kind of reps and sets of port in port cities existence like what is your strategy ben i'm sure it's constantly evolving but like when you have that time alone isolated and you're assessing the store assessing what you need what you don't need like how do you how do what is your process like how do you even go about that i mean there's a couple things i mean one of the things i'm very and the guys we we work very hard on is new inventory creating new inventory the last thing we wanna do is is people to come in and be like it was i mean i was here three weeks ago and like it's all the same cards in the display case like because to me then that creates no urgency for them to get back in but if they know like we're turning and burning at a high rate it's like man if we don't get into port city like in the next three or four days we're gonna miss out on new inventory and so we've done i i feel like through contacts both locally and because of my time in the space you know i have people that reach out to me selling stuff i have people that i reach out to like okay this inventory sale guys let's get this this this this this out of the case let's move it along you know even if it's a breakeven or we're not making much money at all let's just keep it turning just keep it turning and so we really try to just try to make sure that when the customer we love when a customer goes man i was just here last week and this is like all new cards in the case we're like yeah yeah that's what we do you know and so and then we try to set up like do new experience for the customer like we just had three new showcases built and with the rise of marvel and disney and star wars and all we created a whole new case from that and man that case has been on fire we have multiple cars getting turned and burned out of that case and so that creates another thing where i'm online all the time trying to replenish that case just because there's not a lot of that stuff locally so i have to go outside and source it then we created our new new arrivals case so now there's a new arrivals case so people know these are all the cards we bought yesterday or in this case that so people rush over there to see what's bought and then those cards that were in that case now filter out into their appropriate sport and then we have cards of all values you know we have cards from value boxes to ten to five figures you know so so again it's having something a little bit all over the spectrum it's like wow man i didn't expect to walk in the shop to see a curry auto a wimby auto a mahomes auto and a brady auto all in the case today you know and or at the same time you know a nineties insert of scottie pippen or whatever so it's just really trying to keep a fresh breath of new inventory and then when it comes to the wax is just like strategically buying wax whether it be off of places like dealernet or other shops we know or maybe sourcing off obscure smaller dealer websites that maybe not aren't in tune to market pricing that have kinda stuff that's moved up in the market they still have some older pricing and we're able to source that bring it in and we may make a skinny margin on it but we wanna have offerings in the shop we don't wanna have the shelves look bare we want people to come in and have an option so i would rather bring stuff in at a skinny margin and be priced to market than having come in and either shelves are bare or or way out of tune with what the market value is on those particular boxes so there's definitely i think some strategic hoops we have to jump through but we try to source the best selection we can staying within the market parameters even if it's a skinny margin for us but we know it's more important that we keep those customers coming back in staying attached to the shop creating stickiness for the consumer and just creating habits and we one of those habits we wanna be is they they feel like they have to come by multiple times a week if not they're gonna miss out so it's gonna it's just creating stickiness creating stickiness for the consumer to feel like they have to be here i wanna talk about collection buying and i don't know the ratio but let's just say like for every ten people that walk into port city and wants to want to sell their collection to you like one of them is a collection that's just like you look you can just look at it and you're like okay this is something i want it has all the players types of cards these pieces but this is a lot of the times like you might get a text or whatever but a lot of times it's unexpected like people just come in and they say i've got a collection to sell you let's say it's one of those instances where like someone just surprises you comes in with a collection you may peek out from the back and you look at it and you're like oh man like i'm very like immediate interest like yeah talk talk to us about like that whole process we see these collection buying videos all the time online but i'd love to know from your perspective like how you think about those decisions how you process it you mentioned upfront like you're you're you always wanna be prepared you always wanna make sure you have the capital to buy a big collection if it comes your way unexpected maybe take us into one of those moments yeah i mean you know there's there's definitely different types of collections like we can get collections in that are like a lot of nice inventory for the shop but it's and maybe a lot of like smaller stuff and by smaller i mean like you know a couple hundred dollars at the high end to like bargain box stuff at the low end and we still need that stuff too it's a much tedious process when we're going through that stuff so a lot of times i think we've built up enough through our reviews and just our reputation people will have are kind enough to leave collections with us and give us days to kinda go through it because a lot of times what we want to stress to people is we wanna be fair to both parties so we don't wanna go through this at such a rapid pace that we do a disservice to us and we also don't wanna disservice you we don't wanna not be able to have time to go through your collection and there's some diamond in the rough where there's some nineties insert card that you didn't think was worth much we didn't really have time to properly go through your box and now later we paid them money for this collection we find a thousand dollar kingroofy junior card or a two thousand dollar michael jordan card that was just mixed in with a box of other random stuff so a lot of times what we try to do is we try to talk we try to counsel the the customer through hey if you don't mind give us a day or two to go through this collection if it's large we wanna we wanna do you right and we wanna do ourselves right we wanna be able to give you appropriate value for what's in this box or these boxes or these albums and get back to you on that sometimes the easier collections are actually the ones that are have the most valuable cards because usually they're more condensed and honestly it's easier to comp that stuff out and so sometimes those are actually easier for us scan the slabs look at our buddies you know card in card ladder they make it very easy for us to process through that you know we kinda have set parameters at which we buy that at and so that stuff can be easier and then it's just a matter of how the consumer wants to get paid i think one of the things that's really helped us and our reputations is we're super fair with what we pay people you know we can't give you ninety five percent doesn't really make sense for us there's not a lot of room but you know we are able to pay people on liquid stuff very very i would say above average for what you could expect to walk into a local card shop and expect to get for for for that type of stuff you know we hear horror stories of people going in and being offered fifty sixty percent on like super liquid stuff and like that's just not what's gonna happen if you walk in here and so and i think that's again what's created stickiness is people know one they can walk in here we're gonna be very fair we're gonna pay very close to probably what you would net out yourself after you pay an auction house or ebay you're gonna have a lot less hassle of having to ship and do all that stuff and for many instances we can pay you right then with a check cash wire your favorite payment app or a lot of people end up taking store credit you know what i mean and so we have all those resources available and so i think we make it really simple for people we'll take everything we won't just cherry pick and so i think that ease of use with consumer goes a long way and people know we're fair we'll disclose it we show them the numbers right up front this is what we looked up this is what we can pay you and i think people just like that process we're very transparent with how we we run through that that type of stuff i wanna talk about growth i think any small business owner is ambitious and wants to grow how do you think about growth jameson like what are the types of things are you measuring and then also too i'm curious like on like part on the partnership front like and this can be like people that you're working with online it can be like vendors you're working with like how important are those partnerships to your overall growth oh i mean there's many ways to grow judge growth right i mean i think obviously monetarily is is one i mean that's always a good indication on on what you're doing one thing i've really started diving down in and and the the pos that we use does a great job is is just the amount of return customers that we have you know because i think getting customers in is one thing retaining customers is an entirely different thing you wanna capture that customer because that's that's a much more mutual beneficial relationship in the long term so really tracking is not only how many people are coming in but how many people are coming in and then returning so that's something that's very very critical critical to us so i think that's the most important thing for me is the return customer percentage and i think we do a really good job of of creating going back to that stickiness making people want to return you know and i and people that are new to the area you know i love when they say hey we're gonna try out all the card shops great i want you to try out all the card card shops and we can't wait to see when you come back you know because i just have that much confidence in what we do here and the experience that we create that i feel is unlike anything else that they're gonna find locally and and our vendor partners are are extremely important you know i think we have a great relationship with fanatics you know one thing i think that has helped me is i would say in my previous career i was probably more on the fanatic side of things more so than the the retail dealer side of thing i was the vendor with the relationship with the retail i was the vendor with the retail kinda perspective that i know partnerships aren't one way there has to be give and take so i understand why fanatics does some of the things they do and i'm able to communicate i think i have a very healthy relationship with my representation when i say hey i understand why you're doing that and i don't think the partnership should be all in favor of me and i also don't think the partnership should all be in favor of you and so let's help each other out and ultimately if we help each other out the consumer is gonna win in the long run and so i think that's helped been able to be very helpful for me to have really good relationships and dialogue and just be able to speak freely with them to give some constructive feedback to them but then also understand like they're not just holding me back if i don't get something my i want there's when you operate at such a high level there's decisions that are made that i may not agree with necessarily but i understand and so i think that's been helpful to not just see fanatics as the big bad wolf but understand that we're a partner and and together that's how the hobby grows i also have some other great partnerships through other vendors and just other local small businesses that we partner together to do events or promote or just to encourage you know local businesses and i think that's crucial too is that as a local business owner is that i support like minded businesses and like minded business owners and we help support each other out in the community and grow each other i think that's ultra critical in this day and age so yeah it can be relationships aren't a one way street it can't be or it's not really a relationship it's just you just using someone so i think it's important that relationships go both ways so both parties should be giving fifty one percent if one is giving fifty one and the other is only giving forty nine it's out of whack so you should you should feel like you're giving more and that person should also feel like they're giving more and i think that's the sign of a healthy relationship i love that i think the last time we connected was a couple months ago and it was at fanatics fest and i was trying to like figure out how to like even navigate walking around that monstrosity and i was just like kind of a chicken with my head cut off like walking through it and then i saw i think i saw your logo one of your pop ups and i was like there's jamieson i'm gonna go say what's up and we got a chance to speak briefly and i left into the madness and then i think dude i think i got back to my hotel room and then i just like pulled up instagram it's all like the news of like the deal that you made with kevin o'leary and shine and i was just like did i was like did this just happen right after we connected i i think like from a timeline perspective it was pretty close but dude it was a massive deal it like you know was all over instagram it was one of these moments at fanatics fest that they promote and i think it was just really cool so i i want you to like maybe have the opportunity because i think anything you you wanna share about how that all took took shape and went down i would love to kinda give you some space to talk about it because i think when people might there might be people listening when they hear jameson long or port city sports collectibles like they associate you with that deal because that's how they know you yeah yeah so yeah i got reached out to probably about a week ahead of time you know i think just because of some of the cards that i have in my collection and kinda cards i deal with kinda on the personal side of things i know i have port city sports collectibles which is the shop but then i have a separate page i operate on social media called exquisite sports collectibles which is kind of my original page when i was going kind of way back started just kind of buying and selling and trading online that was kind of more of my personal pc pages it's a lot more focused on ultra high end and so they knew some of the cards i had called fanatics i've worked with fanatics collect private sales team for a while buying and selling and also i've known shine for a long time we've done many deals in the day and so probably you know a lot of of you know support from him as as teaming me up as a as a potential candidate is i think mister wonderful kevin o'leary was kicking around the idea of wanting to do like a shark tank type event for cards at fanatics fest out of the tops booth so they reach out and they say hey kinda told me what was going on would i be interested in something like that you know hey it could be great kind of stage for your brand name and stuff like that i said yeah i'd potentially be interested in that i'm like you know i'm not gonna go on and fire sale any cards just to be on a on a stage i mean because it is cool but it's like that doesn't mean that much to me at this point in my life but i i can't recognize it was a cool experience they're like alright alright so then we started talking alright so what is some stuff that you may have right now that you know you would be open if the price was right to moving and so we started running through a rolodex of cards and and they're like alright alright and they started like talking about cards and say okay so like if you sold this what's your ballpark on it if you sold this what's your ballpark on it i i think a lot of that was more so just to like okay if this guy comes up on stage are we even in the ballpark of having a deal like because like if you went up into the cards realistically worth a million dollars and he says he wants ten million dollars it's a nonstarter like we're we're just wasting everybody's time but if we're in the ballpark of a deal being able to be hammered out through some negotiation maybe this makes sense so we talked about a few cards and they mentioned a couple that that may be of interest and they would like hey we'll get back to you on it and then i think there was a and then they talked to another guy and kinda because of what he was gonna be willing to bring which was more basketball we kinda cut the basketball stuff out of mine and that's why we kinda got to landing on like the ohtani one because at the time of fanatics fest it's still you know ohtani was probably the hottest guy in sports and then we had the brady champ ticket you know i think the brady made a lot of sense card vault brady was there huge huge kind of figure for the fanatics brand seemed to kinda make sense as well and it was very different two very different pieces than what the other guy was bringing and so we kind of they kind of again we kinda had another talk hey this is how we see it going down are you comfortable with that and i think because of my some of my experience of the past of kind of my role in corporate america and speaking in front of large groups and stuff like that they also felt like okay if he got on stage he's not gonna be like trembling in his boots and like lock up and like not find words to say so i think that also kind of matt shine was able to say hey like you know if jameson gets up there he'll be able to be fine he'll be able to handle his own so i think that was also another big piece of it on top of the cards so yeah so it kinda just there was there was a it wasn't like i just went up there they had no idea what cards i was bringing and this all just happened on a whim they knew the cards i was bringing at least fanatics did and they knew the ballpark i needed to be in i i needed to be in to make a deal happen and what i was gonna be asking of the cards and then and so yeah but that whole like there was no like we got on a call and mister wonderful was on the call and like when i went up there that was the first time i'd seen mister wonderful we we met briefly vip right before we walked out in the backstage and actually he was super nice super chill not the not the guy he plays on tv very very kind my son was with me he was very kind to my son actually a really nice guy and then but we me and him did not discuss numbers figures anything at that time and then when we got on stage that's kinda where we dialed it all in and had the negotiation and yeah and it was just it was a really cool experience i really didn't tell anybody that that was happening i think the only people that knew going into that was my wife and the guys that work here at the shop but nobody that was there because my phone started blowing up after it went on social media i'm like what how this happened yeah i i i didn't tell really like i said outside of my wife and then my kids and the guys at the shop were the only people going into that that knew that that was happening so after a big moment like that happens and you sell a monster card and you exit fanatics fest like how do you think about using the capital from a sale like that to help kind of put gasoline on the fire of the business that you're running like how does that does that card play a role in like what's happening at port city or is it sit separate it kinda sits separate i my wife always thinks i'm like the biggest weirdo because i i like i don't count anything in exquisite like towards port city so like i kinda isolate the there's kinda like a internal wall built in there now there does become some gray area at times but i i keep those businesses very separate so and to me it's just like i'm trying to quantify port city as its own in entity and exquisite as its own entity because let's say if i was ever let's say if i was no i don't want to so nobody reach out to me but if i ever wanted to bring on a partner or franchise port city or grow the business like i wanna know what that business is evaluated at on its own compared to what exquisite is worth on its own because exquisite is basically just me buy sell and trading on the secondary market right and so i try to i try to kinda put blinders on to what port city is doing and to what exquisite is doing so to me it's i mean honestly i know this is gonna sound weird it was just like i almost try to like not even process like it happened to me it's just like more it's just more equity that's now for like exquisite sports collectible and in my mind it's like okay how do we recreate that how do we recreate that what is our next sale like that is it four five cards is it one big card and to me it's just trying to be smart with the resources that have you know i've been fortunate enough to be blessed with to and just trying to steward that money well and it's not just like not just how do i do it in card but like what ways can i look to also put some of that money back in the community how can i use that money to set my kids up for a good future and just being good steward of you know the blessings that i've been giving and given and just not blow it and not take it for granted and just be wise in the decisions that i'm making with it before we close this out jamieson i wanna talk about just like your instincts and decision making like i observe a lot of people in this space i talk to a lot of people in this space and i just look at your activity whether it's you know building the store whether it's buy sell trade with the exquisite sports collectibles and it just always feels like you have the right instincts where you're able to buy something and sell it at the right time i know it's you're you're you're not shooting a hundred percent from the field but more or less like there's these big moments and then feels like you you you you opened up your shop at the right time and now it's scaling like how what do you attribute those instincts to like is it just time you've spent in the space something different like how much do you lean on your instincts and intuition when making kinda big big decisions for your business and for your family man that's a great question i wish i could say i was that smart i don't think i am i think you know a lot of prayer just a lot of encouragement and just i don't know it's just i don't know how to put my finger on it it's a it's a little bit of a knack it's hard to i've been i just been very blessed that the lord has guided me in a lot of great decisions i have made some not so great decisions so i don't like to your point i'm not batting a hundred i try to learn a lot from the ones that don't work out so i don't repeat them or not repeat them a lot but i think also part of it is i'm not afraid to make a bad decision so i'm not afraid to take a risk if that makes i think you know i did a podcast a couple weeks ago and i think when you make a decision without understanding why you're making a decision that's where you get yourselves in trouble i think i talked a lot on that about like fomo like not understanding why you're doing what you're doing but for me when i make a decision and i've considered it well and i've prayed about it and i've i have a thesis i think it's important to have a thesis of why you're doing what you're doing and the thesis makes sense doesn't mean it's gonna work all the time but if it does and you've considered your option and you've done the research i think it'll work out more than it doesn't and that doesn't mean you can't have a good thesis and you can't be very well thought out and it could just be bad timing i mean that happens but i think if you do that and you you don't just do something because someone else is doing it and you don't just kind of just say just take wild risk with no kind of thought process i think that'll help guide and i think also going back to having wise counsel there's not many decisions i make that i don't run at least by someone and now i may not ultimately i i may be going with them just to get a counterargument i may ask someone that i know is is gonna probably be against me but i wanna understand what their reasoning is why they wouldn't do it and i still may think that my reason to do it is stronger or i may go man that's a really good thought i didn't even think of that and so yeah i think it's just a combination of thing but i mean it's just i've been very blessed i think i've i try to you know a lot of my guys they ask me the same question and it's a very it's to me that's one of the hardest skills to give to somebody it's hard to replicate like a gut feeling and sometimes it is sometimes i do just get man i just i i don't know i just got this gut feeling that's just telling me to do this i'm a i'm a do a little research and then but some of the and i go back with the ohtani card at the time and we were talking about this with the card i won't spill the beans that you just made a purchase on some of the decisions that i've grinded and like had the most butterflies and felt like i was like paying up the most for are usually the ones that end up working out the best for me but mhmm you know what i've done i've really really thought through it long and hard and i just think about some of those decisions leaving corporate america opening the first shop moving into a bigger space buying a card like the ohtani card all those were ones like i i made a decision i second i i i had doubt i rewent i created a thesis again for it i said let's go for it prayed about it and like all those decisions have been some of the greatest decisions from just a career perspective that i've ever done and so you know sometimes in the day you just you do it you weigh your options and at some point you you weigh them but you also don't do it to where you freeze yourself and you don't make any decision you make your decision and you go and you live with what the results are and sometimes that's just what you gotta do so much great information packed in this one jamieson i am a fan of you i am a fan on of what you're building and it has been fun following along appreciate the chat i'm looking forward to doing this again down the road always a pleasure brother thank you so much for having me