alright we are back with another episode of passionate profession brought to you by my good friends at ebay this is a fun and unique conversation i love digging into entrepreneurial stories this is definitely a first i was telling our guests ahead of this i i have had many conversations with different configurations of family members before but this is the first husband and wife combo so this is definitely gonna be fun and i wanna dig into that and we're gonna talk through it and learn a little bit more about how they're building their business and just across the industry what's happening but today i'm joined by michael and mikaela from the rated rips team excited to have them here michael mikaela how are you well thanks for having us we are doing well super excited yeah i mean it's always exciting stuff to talk about we'll get into our marriage a little bit and entrepreneurship and rated reps and all the different courses that it's that it's taken definitely i'm i'm excited to to learn a little bit more from you and i'm thinking about this and prepping for this my wife is in health care i'm in sports cards and content and we we don't have anything in common professionally to talk about but it sounds like like you two are like making it happen and maybe like before we dig into all the how did this happen how did this start i'm curious just like out of the gates building a business is hard building i can't even imagine building a business with your spouse what that's like and i guess if you could rewind the tape from the very beginning and go back to everything that's transpired with building rating rated rips would would you go back and sign up for it again like and i'm not trying to get anyone in trouble and don't know if you have the same answers or different but i'm curious just from a husband and wife perspective would you do it again do you wanna hit on it first sure yeah i mean i love what i do every single day i love working with michael my best friend my partner every single day we have amazing conversations some of them are hard conversations but they're always moving us forward which i think is a key element that we both try to strive for every day and the lifestyle that it's provided to us we we like to travel we like to do things with our daughter mia so we work really hard but we also play really hard in having your own business it gives that flexibility it does provide some demands right there's not a lot of people there to pick up the slack when you're not there but we're doing our best to build an amazing team around us to continue to allow us to have more flexibility for different things so yeah i mean same thing for me like mick said get to work with my best friend every day actually we'll take it back even farther was before we started rated rips we actually both worked at the same accounting firm we're both cpas and i actually pulled nick away so that's how rated rips got started and we can get into more of that but that's kind of just always been since the two of us met we're just best friends from the jump and always been integrated between our relationship and business work now our own business so i love it i am the son of a retired cpa so he helped me with my business i'm sure you all are mindful of like the operations and the accounting and all that which i think is really important and it might not be the sexiest topic but i think it's really important so maybe we'll dig into just like how you think about putting your old professional lens in your business that you're building that's super fun but obviously with building a business in the hobby it comes from i think most of these conversations from a place of passion so who who i i michael you you mentioned you brought your wife into the mix like were you the collector first were you both collectors like what's the story there yeah i'll enter i'll enter in on this one but i collected probably since elementary school middle school and you can see the shelving behind me i collected everything not just cards but bobbleheads as they're up on the top shelf sneakers there on the second shelf i've gotten into formula one but all the way back to elementary middle school lebron was always my guy being from ohio he got drafted in o three i was born in ninety three so i was ten years old i was the guy to follow being the local guy and everything i can still remember my mom taking me to card shops card shows riding my bike to card shops locally and just it's always been a huge passion and i've been so deep in mick will tell you i buy way too much stuff but i'm still a collector to this day collected all through college and then during covid it just you know the hobby absolutely boomed it took off and i found a a new sense of collecting again through breaking and and that's where rated rips came from but yeah so the collecting side was me as a kid i don't think they had any sort of collections coming in i i have enough for the two of us and our daughter at this point so mikayla when you when he michael was getting back into the mix covid i think many of us are products from like getting back in and collecting again during that period because there wasn't much to do and then some of us have built businesses like rated rips during that time when when you saw his passion for getting back into sports cards during that period did you ever think that you would maybe leave your job to start a business in this space like talk a little bit about like how this actually happened i did not think i would ever leave my job so i was a cpa i was a manager i was probably the the youngest manager at the firm we worked for and i loved my job i was good at my job i love helping people i love saving money on taxes and just the relationships that i built so when covid started and he was buying into these box breaks he's like i think we can do this and i was like sure i like making extra money why not you know never in my mind did i think we would be do this full time and leave our jobs and our stability and everything so we started it and i enjoyed helping but i there was always still a part of me that was like you know i'm still trying to do everything i can for the firm i worked for and so i didn't have a ton of time but as things started to scale it just became inevitable like we both had to quit because this was something we enjoyed doing he quit first and then within what six to eight yeah six to eight months six to eight months yeah i quit yeah was it was quick yeah i was very supportive though like from the very beginning i enjoyed it i think when you marry someone you just want them to be happy and seeing michael getting to do what he loved every single day it was inspiring and i was gonna just support whatever he wanted and financially we were able to just pursue it full time and so it was nothing but exciting i i remember the day i had to tell the firm i was leaving it was very emotional because i loved what i did and they were all like you're you're leaving this like was on partner track right like i was gonna become a partner and they're like you're leaving your your career that you spent ten years building to sell cardboard i was like yep yes i am so i think that's incredible and i wanna maybe get back to just that sacrifice element and letting go of everything to start something on your own or support your husband who is has this vision and idea to to pursue this michael did you when did you get to this point where you had this idea okay i'm watching box breaks happening i'm maybe this is something i should start doing what talk to us a little bit about just like how you got from like let's start this to okay we have a legitimate business around this to the scale to where you are today and kind of the service lines you offer like what's how did this all happen yeah there's a lot to unpack in that question so for sure but i think i would take it all the way back to college you know my i was grateful enough to have parents who paid for my college but still in college like instead of doing a lot of the college activities i actually ran a sneaker business reselling jordans and lebron and that tied right into collecting right it's it's athletes it's sports it's all of that so i had a business background already and then i was buying into these box breaks during covid and it did not take long i was three four breaks in probably that was it and i thought to myself man i'm on the wrong side of this i don't need to be hitting the big cards to feel excitement i can get just the same as much excitement and be on the other end providing a service that i feel can be at more of a premium service than what i'm seeing among a lot of people this was before all the lie the true livestream platforms and and where everything has went from from covid years twenty twenty until now there's so many more avenues and so much of it was on instagram that's why i built my whole sneaker business i ran it all through instagram and then yeah three four breaks in i'm like let's change this and we went and got i will never forget it you probably won't either twenty nineteen mosaic basketball is built rated reps blaster boxes built rated reps we were running one blaster box breaks you know i mean blast was for a hundred and fifty two hundred dollars during covid was zion rookies were selling for a hundred dollars mean anybody in the hobby just knows the covid price is what they were mhmm but we posted a break and it sold out in thirty seconds i think it was just a blaster box and we had an extra one we closed another one boom it was gone within two days and they were just spot filling instantly we couldn't even i could post a break at any time it would fill immediately it was crazy and it was a blessing that all of this happened while people were stuck at home with extra income all the people that typically would go to the casino they had extra money to spend they they're just looking for something to do and honestly they're also looking for entertainment and an uplifting community that's what we tried to provide from the jump and we started breaking and getting bigger and bigger breaks and hobby boxes and different years and different sports but mosaic basketball is what i relate the beginning of rated reps breaking to and now we really don't break much at all it's a full time consignment business we do a little bit of side breaking in addition to a friend but other than that that's where it does went and we can get into the consignment piece later of how we shifted because that was a massive shift from breaking but that's the backstory of where it all came from it's incredible that i think everyone listening can visualize that zion totally base mosaic card it's and who would have thought that the chase for one of those would end up leading to a business that's sustained in this hobby and yeah i definitely wanna dig into how you know breaking company became focused almost wholly on consignment but mikayla back to you i'm thinking about what you said in just this you know you're up for partner role at the firm that you're at and i think about just like generations and i think about like my our older generation or my parents' generation and it's like this cock track of you continue to work hard at the same place and you continue to move up the corporate ladder and that's security and that's how you provide for your family i mean i i mentioned my father my father was at the same firm for thirty six years and so this idea of leaving a a job that's very very comfortable that you enjoy that pays well for for uncertainty is it's very puzzling to an older generation but i see individuals in this space doing stuff like that all the time like how did you get to a place where you felt comfortable saying goodbye to this career that you thought you were going to probably work for the next you know decade decade plus into this land of uncertainty in this industry that you're just learning about like how did you get yourself comfortable with that i've before mick gets into it i do i have to commend mick so much because just the level of confidence and support from from the jump towards me was the highest level of confidence support trust i've ever felt in my entire life and there my opinion there was no hesitation from mick it was just full send and let's go for it but i did i felt like i owed you that so you get into it too think the way that you're describing like the generation that our parents are in is spot on it was it was an interesting conversation i will say like telling them that one michael was leaving and then not even a year later i was leaving they were they were supportive but also concerned and they just didn't understand i think even even for years like there was a couple years where they still just didn't understand it would always be the comment of like make your money while you can like you don't know how long this is gonna last and it's like we're running a business like we're not just like making side money anymore this is our life this is our business but i think why i was able to get on board was simply that i just trusted michael i feel that michael could sell ice to an eskimo i remember saying that the day that he's like do you what should we do should i do this full time i'm like hundred percent like it doesn't matter if we're breaking or we're whatever service we're doing i just know that we're gonna be okay because of michael and his ability to sell and his ability to provide value whether it's breaking or consignment or grading advice or just market trends he just has so much knowledge and passion you can't buy passion right you either have it or you don't and michael has it and i could just trust in that and know that he will take us wherever we need to go and so that's really how i was able to get on board it's funny when we were breaking i didn't have as much input on the direction of the business or growing the business it was really us letting michael lead us and i think when things switched to consignment consignment is a service right so we're providing a service now and that's really where i've been able to step in and my ability to create processes efficiency like manage people everything i learned from a cpa growing a business is now applied to our own business and we've seen tremendous growth from both of us but i would say that i'm able to focus on the big picture the future goals the q two planning everything that's important for businesses to do i can focus on that and we've got an amazing team around us to do the other stuff like the sorting and the shipping and everything so yeah i guess to answer your question in simple i just trusted michael i knew he was gonna take us places and his passion is really in my mind what has separated us from other businesses in this space there's so much i wanna dig into there i think i think i think one of the my observations that i i see and i feel very passionate about across this industry is that that no matter what line of business you're in whether it's you're working for a manufacturer whether you're have a breaking business a consignment business technology business you're building software to help support businesses in the space whatever it is like i still feel like there is so much room to grow from a a professional perspective like building systems building operations building scalable businesses like it feels like as this hobby continues to absolutely soar and boom like the businesses in this space are trying to play catch up so i don't know like the way i hear you communicate the way i hear you think about this old world that you're in and applying it to this this new world it it it sounds very much more it's more polished maybe more professional like do you do you think about that do you think about like this is this could be an advantage for us like me taking like old professional skill set and applying it to this business that we're building because i think there's a lot of businesses in this space probably doing similar adjacent things than you that are are just still trying to figure it out or maybe more defensive or more reactive when things and opportunities come your way like how how do you think about like your old old world and and applying it to this new business endeavor that you're on i yeah for sure the most relatable question you could have asked us right now through what we're going through mhmm do you wanna speak on it first yeah i just i think that there's a lot of collectors people in this hobby that are making real money and they they're not reporting it correctly first of all so love it i i just think that having that background like has allowed like thinking about things from an accounting perspective it's different than thinking and it's different from like income tax versus cash flow there's just so many different elements to it and the background allows us to look at our business as a business instead of a hobby and so so much more than like hey this quarterback threw four touchdowns and now he's worth four x well you also have taxes and income and everything that goes along with that when you sell that card especially if it's not at a card go i just think that the background has really allowed us to mitigate risk mhmm mitigate exposure like we're trying to just do things the right way and run our business like a business and i think having that background like i know sales tax i know income tax i know nexus i know all of these things and maybe i'm not an expert in anything but i know to ask the questions and i don't know that there's other i know that other businesses of course have advisers and stuff but just having that as like a background and and having that built in from the beginning versus like trying to play catch up like you said has been very helpful as well as like just using financial data to make decisions right i think if you can make decisions based on a lot of different variables in a business but financial data and understanding like the cost per listing and at what point like do you need to bring on a new person having that piece of information and having the analytical background and the accounting background has really helped us yeah for sure the so much of what you said is i it's so relatable and i would be there if it wasn't for my dad who's got the background that you all have and it opens your eyes i i'm very curious just when i see other businesses running like how they're thinking about the stuff that you just talked about but i also wanna before i wanna talk about like the pivot from like breaking dickensides and how that decision was made but michael you said you're talking about or this is what i've learned about you that you like to sell your wife mentioned like you're a great salesperson and i think sales is i don't wouldn't say it is i don't know people don't like sales or people in this space like don't wanna be sold to but i've always found the best salespeople have a process have a strategy have a way to engage in conversation and eventually open up the eyes to their customer and to engage and to transact and there's a whole process that goes into it so you've been selling it sounds like for a while whether it's sneakers sports cards how how do you think about your sales process like when you think about you know approaching the market and trying to offer your services like what are some of the things that you're always thinking about in order to kinda hit your goals and get your business to that next level yeah that's a good question and i think a lot of i don't even really consider it like a sales pitch i just i care so much about people and i always have mikaela and i both do it's more than just selling your cards or or running a business or making the next dollar it's everything from start to finish from the consignor side to also our internal team i mean the more business we can build i've started to see i mean over the last year i think we've hired fifteen people a year ago we had one person so now we're able to help provide a lifestyle for the people that are on our team and and help work with us and then let alone the money we're putting back in consignors' hands but when it comes to yeah it's hard for me to consider it a sales pitch it's more of just like a consignor relation type thing one of the most important questions i ask anytime i get on a phone call with a consignor is what do you value most i don't i don't need to try to figure it out just tell me and i will tailor as best as our team possibly can to what you value the most is it convenience is it absolutely getting the top dollar for your cards do you do you want your cards held back so that the timing is perfect or do you need money now do you want all your stuff run quickly do you need it run under an express service do you like to be communicated updates daily do you like them weekly do you like them monthly it's all about playing in in my opinion what i've learned to just what people like the most because that's what they're looking for in life in general they they not cater to but they just want their preferences taken care of and it's so hard to find that in today's world to have somebody that will just look after the preferences and what you enjoy the most yeah just to piggy bank on that i think that we sell cards for people and collections for people the way that we would wanna sell our collections yeah right so we are new saying that we've said a couple times and it probably will be become part of our brand but built by collectors for collectors so when you send us cards we wanna sell those cards as if they're our own we are on the same team our interests are aligned the higher your card sells for the more money you get the more money we get so we want to be that trusted adviser and i think there are so many different reasons why someone would like to consign their cards are they liquidating their entire collection are they someone who likes to buy into breaks they're just trying to get back as much as they can to fuel their excitement are they looking to get out of the hobby entirely are they just getting into the hobby we try to provide education we provide the best service that we can and the best service for one person is different than another person and so we try to just see what they're looking for and tailor our team based on their needs we try to have that that process or that viewpoint from start to finish so from the first point you reach out to the moment we get your package to your listings are live and when you get your payout we just wanna be timely with all our communication and it's one of the biggest hurdles i think i've found in this hobby in general with with other services i bought into is just sometimes i don't know where my stuff's at i don't know when it's being shipped i don't i don't know if it's in process and what it is so and we are just continuing to try to make improvement towards always enhancing all those aspects with unrated reps that's been the goal of twenty twenty six is to work on the business not in the business as owners it is the most difficult thing to do and that's i've this i wanted to hit on this earlier when you were talking about processes and and everything that mick brings to the table is i told mick going into this year like you're in the driver's seat i'm in the passenger seat and it's easy for me to come on and say that like you build up my wife but it's the truth and most people still won't believe it with me here on a podcast saying it but it is the mick is the largest reason for our growth over the last three hundred and sixty five days whatever it is it's all the implementations the processes the hiring the delegating taking things off my plate because i refuse to do it and i feel like i can get everything done in a day as fast as i possibly can but i've seen the benefits of of everything that we've been able to do and grow and it's just it's a it's a stigma in business and in the card hobby for sure like a female can't lead a business as well it's it's so false it's completely false there is just the just i wanna see there's so much you're i'm relating with so much that you're saying here and may maybe we'll have this because like fireworks keep going off in my brain as these topics are coming up like let's talk about the the the female business owner perspective obviously like you go to the national any content you see online it's so male driven it's so male focused but when you go a couple layers below the surface you like this is my discovery has been like there is a incredible volume of females that are not only collectors but are building incredible businesses in this hobby and are passionate and it it feels like that spotlight hasn't been shined bright enough and i think it's just because like it's just so male dominated like how do you think about that mikayla like being a female in this space like building a business that i mean you said i wanna get into the hiring you said like you grew to fifteen employees like that's incredible especially from a small business perspective in a year like how do you think about your role as a female building a business that's been this successful in this space that's been so male dominated for the the history of sports cards i would say as a female cpa i'm kind of just used to it right so being a cpa in in a lot of my classes it was very male dominated so i'm pretty comfortable with that element and a lot of most of the partners that i worked for at the previous firm were males and so i'm i'm used to that and i can kinda hold my own but going into sports cards something that i didn't collect as a kid i don't have twenty years of experience i think that's really where the intimidation comes from not necessarily that i'm a female versus a male it's more just the background of sports cards in general can be intimidating but i mean we we we have another female that works with us like i try to hire females i think girls are amazing and women are amazing and so i just i try not to be intimidated and just do the best i can we really i mean it doesn't even honestly come up that much the female thing think it's just because mick and i are we work we're together twenty three hours a day if not twenty four hours a day and that's the truth and we're just so in line and so in sync it's like we're two business owners and two people and two friends that are trying to continuously grow every single day and we work with so many different aspects of consignors high end people low end middle different ages different ethnicities everything so we are ready there's it's all for us it's all the same we wanna provide the best experience we can across the board you i will say i just became the the i'm fifty one percent owner in our business now and there are just for all of the women out there listening there are women grants for women owned businesses so just look into that and if you have a business with someone else try to get full full or majority ownership and apply for those grants it's free money right we've we've never taken grants we've never taken loans we've never taken outside funding but we're going through this jump start program right now in our local stark county and it's all about like helping businesses grow and one of the things they mentioned is there's grants available money through different organizations and it's like wow yeah ten thousand dollars i could really advance our technologies a lot with ten thousand dollars so side note for all of our amazing women in business yes that's incredible and yeah wherever you're at where what county you're in across the country look into programs because there could be funding that's awesome feedback you said something there and this is like the most relatable thing that i've heard in any conversations i've had for months but you mentioned like working on the business instead of working in the business i i am trying to pull myself out of the content hamster wheel where it's like i'm spending like ninety percent of my time on content like ten percent on business and i'm like this is out of whack because when i spend that ten percent on on business like results happen it's like how do i pull myself out so i'm in this mode right now where it's like i'm trying to do whatever i can to offload responsibilities to trusted friends' resources i'm in the process of learning out do i need to hire like or do i rely on contractors so like talk about your experience with that like when did you realize like you need to pull yourself out you need to start bringing in people like how did you think about like the capital you had and instead of like maybe going on a vacation spending that mhmm inside the business with maybe hiring a person so you could specialize your time like it's a big topic but i think a lot of business owners in this space who are listening probably deal with it and would love your feedback sure i'll take this one i feel like i'm gonna be one hitter i think you should speak on it the most but i think i'll start just by saying i'm definitely the one that's like i can do it all like i said earlier i can do it all i can do it the fastest it's gonna take forever to train people that used to be the mindset it's not for me anymore and that all comes from just what what we've done and what mick has implemented and shown is potentially there in the growth and it is definitely the right decision to do that and to try it and i can't tell business owners enough if you're working in the business i'm still far too much in the business not that i wanna totally pull hours away from the business but i wanna be working on the business and and enhancing what we can provide so i think just on that aspect you should speak on it from there because you are the leader okay so rewind november twenty twenty four michael started reading and one of the books he read was dan martell buy back your time and that book is all about like take how much money you make and find out your hourly rate okay so if you're making forty dollars an hour and you're doing tasks that you could pay someone ten dollars an hour you're essentially losing thirty dollars an hour okay and so we have applied that to every area of our life we we don't mow our own lawn we don't shovel our driveways because you can pay people and support local businesses too by the way you're growing communities you're supporting local and you're doing the things that you're passionate about and you're good at doing and you're letting others do things that they're good at and so our first real hire was through magic it's a company who finds virtual assistants for companies you pay them a monthly fee they find the assistant and so it's a subscription based service we have gotten the most phenomenal people from magic i absolutely love them they have changed our business we have three currently through magic but our first hire his name was sean he is sean he's still working with us he has taken over so many responsibilities and my approach to it was and this is the approach that i would urge other business owners find one task that you work on every single day and train on it okay and so spend four hours training on it and then the next day the person will do it you've freed up one hour and then the next day you're freeing up one hour so every day you've bought yourself time and then after they're comfortable and you feel like they're doing a good job find another task and then you just compound on that yep and then at the end of the day you now have a forty hour a week employee who is taking on forty different things and you freed up an entire week of time and then you find another person and then you do the same process so hiring someone it is scary training is scary onboarding is scary just pick one or two things that is gonna free up tremendous amount of time you don't have to do it all at once yeah and find out volume based what it cost you and when you need to bring somebody on yeah when you get to a metric that you can't handle anymore you know that that's a point that you need another person yeah i will say too like there's so much ai out there and i will admit like we are behind a curve maybe not the sports card world curve but there are just so many things out there and that is where twenty twenty six we're really trying to get more into that space i think that there's a lot of virtual ai assistants out there that can even take on some of those tasks so i would i would spend if i could a week just learning about that and i think that will grow not only our business but can grow other businesses yeah very very quickly so you get to this point i think there's these stages we go through as you know business owners in the hobby you get to this point where you leave your job and you're running your business and you're having fun and you're making money and then there's like this next stage where it's like the demand is so great the money is coming in but you're completely slammed with responsibilities and this is not even talking about like responsibilities on the home front but just responsibilities on the business front and you've done it a certain way to get yourself able to be your own boss and work for yourself that the thought of having other people enter this fold that's not your spouse it can be a little scary right you're like having to offload responsibilities that you have built and designed in order to help you set yourself off on this path of entrepreneurship in this space and like i don't know like you you mentioned the book but like how did you get comfortable letting other people into this business that you're building and you're growing enough that you trusted what they were doing and you trusted their ability to execute like how do you get to that point where you're i don't know giving i read this book a long time ago or the speech read listened to speech a long time ago and it was talking about like you gotta be comfortable like giving up your legos and like that's what i'm hearing it's like you gotta be comfortable like giving up your responsibilities that you were doing for so long to someone else like how do you get to that point it's hard i think i give up the most responsibilities of anyone through hiring for sure and i think a testament to that is just if you can find somebody that can do sixty to seventy percent of what you do in the same amount of time offload that and and find something else that you truly should be working on or if there's certain things you can't offload then then keep those on your plate until you find somebody that's qualified or it works into your schedule and the timing of your business on the trust factor i think you just you do your very best to hire good people thankfully we have been in a position where i can't think of a single issue we've had we have such an incredible team mhmm nothing was nothing great was ever accomplished by one person alone you have to it takes a village it takes people behind you my entire family helps out with our business alongside the huge team that we have and you do you just at the end of the day you put all your effort towards interviews and and setting people up correctly and you just have to trust them at that point it's not easy right i mean you give someone your ebay login and you're like hopefully you don't you know change anything that is important to have the way it is but you just have to you have to train well and you have to let go i i a lot of times learn what michael does i do it myself for a couple days i make the process better no offense and then i find someone else to do it that's like my rinse ripping cycle i think that's such a good a good key point that we have those that we all it's always two people that are so invested and so aligned and i don't think every business has that it's a husband and wife that have both looked at the process mhmm and we always take the time to put the the specific measures and procedures in place so that it really is difficult for things to go wrong yeah we that comes from our cpa background as well i think too because being on that side and and seeing what can go wrong in so many businesses that we dealt with on the accounting side of things mhmm we have that experience to some extent to try to alleviate those issues from happening i mean best practices chain of command internal controls all of those terms are what we spent a long time learning about through our previous careers and so when a package comes in like we know who touched it we know where it went we we have processes in place things don't go wrong knock on wood and if there is something that goes wrong one we make it right and two we put in ten steps to make it never happen again immediately so yeah i don't even know how we on that tangent well i think that he had brett asked about the trust factor and like how you and then it comes with processes and procedures and when you do have something go wrong fix it i mean don't let it go again mhmm and be transparent about it right you know we we we are always transparent we we don't hide things under the rug we wanna make sure everyone is comfortable with what they're getting and and where their cards are we're essentially like storing cards for people until they get sold and so they need to know that their cards are safe their cards are only surrounded by certain people that need to have access to them these people are vetted they have background checks they come from trustworthy sources we can provide all of that through our service and and we build that trust with people before they they move to different steps let's talk about the consignment of it all in the process and let's start with the pivot from primarily breaking to primarily consignment how how did that happen and then once it happened what did you do in order to set yourself up to be a business that's been able to scale a business that's been able to hire fifteen people a business that's still ambitious and thinking about growth like how what's the story of the pivot yeah there's a lot like i've said that you just you there's so many great questions to talk about and get into and try to keep it all to somewhat short but the breaking side was so much fun and i we're fully transparent people and it got to a point where there were so many people entering the space the sneaker world kinda operated the same way i was making huge profits on on sneakers and stockx came out and people started to come in and sell sneakers for lower profit margins and at that point it was time to exit but etcetera etcetera on the breaking side it was more so just it got to a point where there was a lot of people getting i think frustrated with how much they spent on breaks you know it's it's very difficult to hit in a break anybody that knows that if you're build if you're buying in for entertainment i think that's the right reason i think it's a very difficult space if you're buying into return a profit and it began to get tough to fill spots and the last thing that truly made us switch was mia mick got pregnant and we were both breaking about eight pm till four am eastern because we wanted to hit both the east and the west coast because that's when west coast people get home from work you're at four am it's really one am midnight for them and there's this was our first child it still is our only child and there's just no way you get sleep and break eight to four am any parent who can relate to that and the main thing that was it it's like where are we gonna get sleep how are we gonna invest our time we were so big breaking i couldn't just break by myself and i did i somewhat that was a period of time where i somewhat lost interest in breaking and and all of that and we had already had a small consignment business going where we were kind of just selling items for some of the people that bought into our breaks we said let's take a stab at this let's invest more time into it let's try to build this up as big as we can get it and it's been awesome the shift just in general instead of taking money out of people's pockets to putting money back in people's pockets allowing them to do whatever they wanna do with it whether they wanna reinvest in breaks or buy singles or take their kids out for ice cream or go on a vacation if you sold a big enough car or get engaged or get an engagement ring yeah and it's you know that's like we've heard it all on the consignment side it's awesome people will send cards and tell me what they're using the money for and i love hearing about that it is a personal tie into it even outside of the hobby and when people are selling cards to do other things they're often talking about how they got to do those things if they bought an engagement ring or they went on vacation or they took their kids on a trip and that's bringing more people in the hobby it's like wow you sold a card and took your family on vacation because you sold a card for ten thousand dollars let me go see what sports cards is all about so anytime you can get people to talk outside of the sports card world all it's doing is enhancing the space and and getting more people involved and and aware of it but back to the consignment side that was the the biggest drives was mia just i will always credit it for that you getting pregnant and knowing we needed to make a shift and then just the excitement and the thrill of being able to put money back in people's hands we were getting so many messages after consignment like wow like thank you so much i don't have the time to handle this i didn't know my cards were worth this much i'm gonna go take a trip with the money that you're able to put in my hands mhmm and a lot of it was being reinvested in our breaks at that time too so it was a great yeah cycle and community that we had built that supported us we've had such amazing people on on all fronts at all times mikayla when you i i i can sense that it wasn't just like let's switch over and and be a consignment business obviously there was a compelling event you were having a a daughter you needed to change like your hours of operation but i i sense like throughout the journey of becoming a first in class consignment business there's been a lot of like system process you mentioned technology shifts and changes along the way like how do you think about just being adaptable and being adaptable to like trends opportunities areas of investment like how are you thinking about like the system behind rated rips and is this something you're constantly working on on a regular basis or are you kinda comfortable with where you're at right now i will never be comfortable with where we're at neither i whenever i have just like tasks to do i'm not like thrilled or excited i still love what i do every day but when i have a new process i have to fix or there's there's something that i know can be done better i'm gonna work till one o'clock in the morning as many nights in a row as i have to so that's what really fuels me and us both we enjoy growing our business and and making improvements from everyone's perspective our team members our perspectives our consignors our buyers on ebay we we're always i mean i think every single week we're doing something new and that's really if you look at my job it's hiring managing the people keeping things moving and then process improvement so i don't think i'll ever be content i i just enjoy changing things and moving things along and providing that experience for people we we say a lot you know proud and blessed but never comfortable or content yeah that sounds like a couple of ambitious k may one thing i'm definitely curious on and wanna hit on this is growth and customers thinking about i don't know this is really important i think is just the fact that some individual's impression of how businesses grow and scale in this space is a lot different than the reality of it and the more i dig in and uncover like a lot of businesses in this space grow based on customers cus happy customers tell customers and it's just this referral engine try to like i still can't get over you said we we hired fifteen people like that is crazy like especially for some small business owners in the space like how you obviously have to have enough customers coming in and coming back to you in order to have the capital to pay people and keep the business rolling like how do you how do you think about growth and like how is growth happening right now at rated rips primarily yeah primarily just as you said referrals good experiences provide an avenue for new experiences we have a referral program that offers basically fifty dollars for every new consignor someone signs up and then a lifetime one percent kickback so i'm a happy consignor i have a friend who's in the space hey you're looking to sell your cards like rated rips does a great job they're gonna get essentially fifty dollars guaranteed and then one percent on the sales for a lifetime so yeah there's no cap on that so that i haven't heard is that is that a unique offer because i'm i don't think i've heard any business doing that is that something you've you're repeating from somewhere else or is this just an internal idea came up with yeah we came up we had a lot of discussions and like should we cap it how do how do you do it this was this was the first that we rolled out we never changed the percentages we've never changed the lifetime we never had a cap we we tried it it stuck and you look sometimes you look back on things and you think wow this truly was such like an amazing idea why even have the convo to put a cap on it because we have the most amazing consignor base and because we have a referral program through people that enjoy our services they're constantly talking about rated reps and the excellent job we're doing and they're sending in more people and the people that they're sending us are good people because good people work with good people and that cycle just continues to rinse and repeat over and over we bear i don't think we like we don't do marketing or social media to the extent that we should truthfully but we're so busy as is like you said it comes from hiring fifteen people in a year is growth for sure and they just we keep getting new consignors and the people that are with us they they're with us i don't ever worry about anybody leaving once we have them in the door it's just about having the people in place to try to push our name even more mhmm yeah is is maybe as we're kinda rounding the corner on this chat differentiation and how you think about it and standing out obviously we just talked about referrals and happy customers tell their friends and that creates new customers but you're not the only consignment sure outfit there's sure there's new ones there's probably one starting like an llc being filed today it's crazy like so there's so many options and collect ors sometimes it's like the first exposure they have to a consignment shop they use them and then they don't leave like how do you think about just standing out and differentiating obviously i think you've built a process that once they're in they don't wanna go anywhere but like how do you make sure or maximize your chances that you're at least given an at bat on someone who hears about consignment for the first time and and wants to send their cards in do wanna add on that no i think you should hit on that i think when it comes to to new people it's just having i think communication's a big thing that we pride ourselves on and somebody reaches out they're getting an automatic response if they sign up on the website they're getting a response immediately because it's set up as an automatic response once they reply to it they get a response from either mick or i directly we've never offloaded that task i mean because we've always just felt a lot of pride in that and every step of the process like when a package comes in it's relayed to the consignor on the same day it never waits over a day and i guess the other consignors that are in the door though so i'm i'm circling back to the question you asked about new consignors the referral program has just been huge i don't know they're just being fully transparent with you we the conversations we've had over the last year are how do we make our program better for the people we already have we try to invest our time and effort into the people that are already supporting us we have so much confidence in those people and the referral program that we have that we feel they will continue to spread our name and build enough business for us to continue hiring people and grow and i it sounds crazy right because i don't think a lot of people can say that but we don't work with any consignors that like i dislike and even if i did i couldn't come on here and say that right but we have such a great just ecosystem of people from buyers sellers consignors our team the family that's in place around us our family dynamic and all of that and i think that just it resonates with people i'll say too that what separates us from other businesses is we care right it's built by collectors for collectors so we understand the selling perspective the buying perspective the amount of cards he buys on ebay is outrageous so he sees like that process and that's can we make that better so you know we we focus on market trends title optimizations professional photography we have all of these things that i truly believe separates us to get the maximum value out of a sale and we look at the values that the consignors are looking for is it quick to market is it hold and sell when the best time to sell we we provide that advisory service more than just oh here's your cards we're listing them on ebay we wanna be a trusted adviser we look at sports cards as an alternative asset right so these are assets and maybe you send us twenty slabs and you want us to hold them for six months until basketball season starts whatever that is we accommodate that and we make sure that we're the trusted partner the one stop shop you are new into the space you're not sure what to sell raw to capture first to market sales or grade first and hope for that ten we're looking at those things we're having those conversations probably half of michael's week is either spent talking to breakers about new referrals or talking to new consignors and we'll take a two hour conversation and half of it is about cards and half of it is about just getting to know people yeah we provide that trust element the personal element we want people to feel comfortable they're sending us their most valuable possessions a lot of the times and so that relationship is so important we're not just trying to do things quickly we're trying to do things the right way and the way that the consignors want them if quick is what they're concerned with that's what we're gonna focus on if x y z is important that's what we're gonna focus on it makes working in what you're doing so much more meaningful when you know the the person that you're doing it for yeah let's bring it back to the husband and wife duo as we're kind of closing this episode out how do you how do you all set how do you set boundaries like between work life family life conversations about work are there boundaries is it just you're thinking about work all the time having conversations like what what's the dynamic like what have you learned about yourself as business owners in this space living under the same roof rated rips never leaves either of us it just doesn't however we do we try to both stop our workday at five o'clock we go up see our daughter spend time with her before bed we try to not take work into the weekends the two of us take saturdays and sundays off there are of course fires to put out and times that you you have to step in right one or the two of us thankfully there's family and and people in place that make that possible but it it never leaves the back of both of our minds but we try to go on a date night once a week just the two of us work always comes into the conversation to some extent but we try to start the conversation away from work and it just bleeds in but we try to have boundaries in place to some extent to at least separate ourselves because it's so important we could work all day the two of us would work twenty four hours every single day probably and just sleep whenever we absolutely needed it but when you become a parent also it just totally changes the dynamics of everything you need to have that energy for your child we love what we do and i think it's a really good thing we love what we do we when we go out we focus on other aspects of our life but a lot of what we talk about is growing rated rips but in a sense like it is our business and it is a legitimate business but at the same time like growing rated reps and making it better is kind of like our hobby right like that's what we enjoy doing we have other things outside of the business but we we just continue to grow closer together as we grow rated reps and when we're not on the same page we get on the same page very quickly we have open lines of communication we talk about things every day we work three feet away from each other we don't do anything apart people think it's probably crazy but we are almost together for ten years now and we've been pretty much from day one till now together every day and and i think it's just a unique thing that not a lot of people get to experience but i wouldn't have it any other way amazing last one before i let you go a lot of different business owners operators or aspiring business owners and operators listen to this show what is one piece of advice that you'd share that maybe you wish you knew when you started rated rips that you've learned and you kinda hold dear that maybe someone out there could benefit from you wanna i'll go first yeah i just think circling back to that input impact program that we're a part of so stark county the county we're in they have this small business impact program and i'm sure other counties have this it can't be just ours but it's all about helping businesses grow and it's there's advisers there there's financial advisers there's marketing advisers you don't have to know everything you just have to find the person who does and trying to do that in a way that's cost effective so through like a program that's that's paid for through the county would be amazing there's grants out there there's so much and finding support through other avenues family friends you just you need people to talk to you can't do it all on your own we're very lucky and fortunate we bounce ideas off each other all the time i have ten bad ideas but every ten bad ideas produces one good idea and vice versa so you just you need that support and and you can't do it all on your own so why not look for programs out there that are made to help businesses like you yeah it's a good point from mick and it's what we've been involved in recently is just advisory services and working with professionals who are professionals in their space for a reason you can't know everything and it's another one of my sayings all the time is continuous improvement towards forever getting better now you can always get better you can always improve you're always trying to find each day just one thing that you can improve in your life it doesn't have to be business you improve something in your lifestyle you'll carry that into your business if you're an entrepreneur or an owner or even if you're just working for somebody as you continue to to take your life and to new levels and and improvements it makes you feel better and you carry that all the way through that was michael and mikaela from the rated rips team such a fun conversation thank you so much for coming on and sharing the story of building a business together i had a ton of fun learning from you thanks brett thanks