Bill Myers - January 24, 2008

This past weekend, my brother bought a large Class A motorhome through an eBay auction.

Since the motorhome was located 1,500 miles away, and since my brother had never driven a large motorhome before, I volunteered to help him drive it the 1,500 miles from Dallas to Miami.

It was a great adventure, one where we got to see a lot of scenery and meet some very interesting people along the way.

One of the people we met was the man selling the motorhome.

I learned that he buys repo motorhomes from local banks, and resells them on eBay. He does this from his home, and has sold over $4.5 million dollars worth of motorhomes on eBay in the past 18 months.

I asked him to tell me more, and he shared with me all the details.

He told me how he gets the banks to 'front' him the motorhomes, the kinds of motorhomes he looks for (and the kind to avoid), the way he creates his eBay auctions, and how he sells most motorhomes within a few days of listing them on eBay.

He even told me about how much he makes on each sale.

I also met his son, who last year sold more than $250,000 of DVDs he produced himself in his spare bedroom.

When I asked for details, he told me the whole story. The DVDs are mainly PowerPoint presentations based on a public domain book, and his average selling price per set of DVDs is $400.

In both cases, these men were happy to share with me the details of their businesses, simply because I asked questions.

I told them both I'd be writing articles so I could share their successes on my web site, and they said 'no problem'.

People won't always say 'yes', when you ask them details. But you'll never know unless you ask.

So that's what I do. Ask.