Ambassador Bruny Labor Day Garage Sale Tips / Lessons

I will not pretend to be the guru of garage sales but I did learn a few things at my first garage sale on Labor Day. I'm a huge fan of using transferable skills so I applied a couple of things I've picked up throughout the years to have a good sale.

It all started on Sunday morning when my wife and I woke up and decide to have a garage sale. We had been threatening to hold one for a long time now and with her sister visiting we had the additional support needed to make it happen. Here is what we learned and hopefully the tips can be valuable to you when you decide to have your own sale (hey, maybe it will even inspire you to have your own sale):

Ambassador Tip#1 - Plan ahead; you are not the only game in town. "Yikes! As I finished making my cardboard signs to hang at the entrance to our complex and one for the busy streets not to far away, I quickly realized that someone else already had a garage sale planned in the same complex. Their sale was only planned for Sunday (ours was Sunday and Monday, running until 3p.m.) from 9a.m. - 2p.m. (by the time we saw this it was already 1p.m.)

Ambassador Tip#2 - Learn from the competition and the situation. As a garage sale rookie I took note of the excellent places our neighbors put their posters and decided to put ours in the same place. I figured our yard sale went until 3p on Sunday (1hr after they would have packed up we would still be around-- whowho haha=my best Dr. Evil laugh with pinky to the mouth)

Ambassador Tip#3 - There is no competition. After witnessing the excellent signs my neighbors had for their yard sale, I decided to go over to their sale before they closed shop. I introduced myself and let them know that we are having a yard sale and would gladly display some of the items that they did not sell in exchange for their signs (the signs just said Garage Sale and had an arrow, but they were in key places to help drive business... at least that's what my gut told me.) They agreed and we no longer had competition but allies.


Ambassador Tip#4 - Teamwork makes the dream work. My wife, her sister and I were involved in making this thing happen. Sure anyone of us could have done it alone, but it was so much more fun and gave the opportunity for a rotation because we had a team. We each brought our own individual talent to the table. My wife has the retail / Merchandising background, my sister-in-law is a recent law school graduate so she schooled us on how she used Craig's List while at Syracuse all the time. Her skills put our garage sale on the virtual map, I provided my marketing, sales and analytical skills to the equation. *Important to note that I thought you had to pay to put an event like ours on Craig's List and would not have taken that step if it wasn't for my sister-in-law. We have to challenge our beliefs and be ready to be proven wrong for the sake of success.*

Ambassador Tip#5 - Pay attention to what is happening. Throughout the event we made sure we paid attention to what was selling, what people were checking out, was our pricing too high and how people heard about our garage sale (we had 1 person who came because of Craig's List and all the other folks swung by because they saw the signs on the road-- my gut feeling about the signs my neighbor was using was right...."yes" ). *What we discovered: The signs worked well to pull people in, jewelry, books and CD's focused on personal development sell well. My clothes and shoes with their limited sizing did not sell as well-- my belts did bring in a couple of bucks. I'm surprised no one touched the ties*

Ambassador Tip #6 - Set a goal. Sure, we didn't have the slightest idea how this garage sale would go, but we did set a goal of making $100 bucks for the day. It just made the day more fun and charged to "get that sale." It had me sending messages to my friends on Facebook who live in the area. A couple showed up. Thanks Kandi and DJ Rey! We did not hit the $100 but got pretty close with a $80.

Ambassador Tip#7 - (should really be #1) Have fun. You have a chance to make a little bit of money from stuff you don't want anymore and you get to potentially make new friends. "Shout out to the guy who was just taking his walk, but stop by and told me about some excellent cobblers in the area--now if I could only find a Taylor...sorry, that's another post."


That's all for now....keep Running the Point from where you are, with what you have left after your garage sale!

Your Ambassador,
Mike Bruny
www.runthepoint.com