It started when I received a text notification that there was a new ad placed on Used Victoria that had used the word Nintendo.  I have notifications in place so that whenever anyone places an ad using a Nintendo related keyword I am the first to know.  The ad in this case was for someone wanting to trade a big box of Nintendo games for a 2nd generation Apple TV.

I don’t have Nunchuck Skills, but I do have Math Skills…

I used my awesome Nintendo Math skills which I picked up during Step 17 of The White Double Journey, and found that the value of the games being offered was around $250.  I quickly emailed the person and let them know I had a 2nd generation Apple TV that I was willing to trade.

That night I made a trip to Future Shop to pick up a brand new 3rd generation Apple TV for $127.11.  The next day I met up with the person and made the exchange.  I tested all the games, felt a bit nostalgic and then headed off to visit my buddy Minh, who runs a local retro gaming shop called Hometech Games.

I piled everything up on the counter and asked Minh if he would be interested in buying it all for $250.  He used his Nintendo Math skills to counter with $200, and I shook his hands.

At this point I had a brand new Apple TV in my house, plus an extra $72.89 in my pocket. Another great adventure of wheeling and dealing.

The post How I Traded My Old Apple TV for a New One Plus $72.89 appeared first on Chris Whiteley.

Last spring when I decided to de-clutter my house, I considered the possibility of taking all my excess junk to the dump. Now, in order to do this I would have to borrow a truck, load it all up and then actually pay to leave it at the dump. I thought about this for a while and weighed the pros and cons of dumping vs just keeping, and then it came to me.

Why would I go to the garbage dump when there is a hungry group of people that actually want my garbage?

What I have found is that the free section on Used Vic is a great place to get rid of anything, and quickly. I have posted a varity of things like an old trunk all the way to a broken coffee maker. That’s right, people will come and pick up broken electronics. The crazy part is that people will fight for your free junk. I get all kinds of emails from people with stories and explanations as to why they should be the one to “win” my garbage.

Can I get my garbage hauled for free in less than an hour?

I did an experiment to test just how fast I could get rid of something from my home. At first I was worried about the results as it was Super Bowl Sunday and most people would likely be glued to their TV. In the end the items posted were still picked up in less than an hour, but I am pretty sure that on a normal day it would be even faster.

Here’s the timeline:

• 1:52 Submit button was pressed for ad
• 2:01 Ad appear in the free section
• 2:32 First email received
• 2:50 Items were picked up and out of my house

58 minutes later and I have junk removed from my house. A trip to the dump is avoided.

Now here is the part that makes me angry.

I get really cranky when I see people leaving things on the side of the road with a free sign. We live in a rainy city so who knows how long your couch, or desk has been sitting in the rain, or how many dogs peed on it. I see these types of displays all the time, and they are there for days, if not weeks. To me it seems like it would take much less effort to just take a picture, post it in the free section and get someone to haul it away.

Next time you have anything in your house that you do not want please save yourself some money and post it on Used Vic.  Please do not leave your crap on the side of the road.

The post The Free Section on Used Victoria is My Garbage Dump appeared first on Chris Whiteley.

The magic that is step 17 has now been completed! It started out as an old school Nintendo step, to a video game step, to a good ole find crap at garage sales and sell it kind of step. It started last February, so this step took me 5 months to complete.

While most of the revenue generated was through the original plan, a small amount was not. When I complete the final step am I going to think to myself “Wow I really diviated from the plan, and should have stuck to the rules.”  Nope. I will probably think:

“Ha, I have ‘one million dollars’ and now I can get a million loonies and have a Scrooge McDuck pool.”

Like most of the steps the starting and finishing strategies were a bit different. At first I compiled a list of popular selling Nintendo games and found an average selling price on eBay. Then I went through eBay and started purchasing games that were lower than that price. This method was pretty solid, but was quite time consuming. At the rate I was selling the games on eBay I was really only making around $2 per game. I was going to have to sell a shload of games to get to my goal.

The toughest part was that the first set of games I purchased never showed up and I am still fighting with PayPal, eBay and the seller to get my money back. At the outset of this step I was already down $100. If I ever get it back it will be like found money (I really shouldn’t have mentioned this because I bet my wife will expect something pretty if it ever shows up).

Seeing as how selling the games was not that profitable on eBay I decided to start moving the games on Used Victoria. I could get a better price for the games, but things moved a lot slower. The benefit of eBay is that you have a global market, while Used Victoria is local and filled with unreliable people.

I ended up with a ton of games and nothing was moving.

It was then that I decided to have a garage sale. This garage sale also doubled as my birthday party. My wife asked what I wanted to do for my birthday and I actually asked for a garage sale. The garage sale moved most of the games, and put a bit more money in my pocket.

The point where this entire step really turned around was when my son and I started getting the “garage sale hypes.” Each Saturday we would get up early, eat our breakfast really fast and then run out the door looking for treasure.

On one particular day we found the “dream garage sale” (and I have garage sale dreams all the time, just ask my wife). My son and I walked up to the garage sale and we saw a bunch of old gameboy games on the $1 table. These were pretty popular games. I started totaling their value in my head as I picked them all up. There were 13 in total that value around $100. I was pretty stoked.

The people at the garage sale saw my excitement; we all saw dollar signs.

They invited us to have a look at the games in their garage. In the garage were two laundy baskets filled with games for various systems. At this point I didn’t want to go through and pick and choose the good ones, I just wanted them all (and for a good price). I asked if he would be open to selling them all at once for a low price. He said “make an offer”, I lowballed him at $75 for all the games plus the ones from the dollar table. He didn’t even counter, he just said ‘yes.’

I walked home with a giant box of games. As I approached home, my wife ran out on the deck and in a panicked voice asked “What the hell is all that?”

My answer was simple and to the point “Profit.”

That day I calculated the retail value of all the games. It was around $600. In the end I sold them all for around $400 dollars.

During the entire journey, my son became very excited about going to garage sales. Every single Saturday he came home with something free. He totally worked his ‘cute little boy charms’ to get free stuff. I’d like to think that people gave me better deals because he is so cute.

Near the end of this step I really got a hand on how to be successful at selling video games. In fact I think I will continue selling games in the next step and combine it with something that I have been cooking up via Etsy. Stay tuned, and hopefully this next step will be completed faster than the last few steps.

The post The White Double Journey Step 17 appeared first on Chris Whiteley.

In the last step I mentioned that things went sideways, and it seems that this step went a little sideways as well. It seems that there are a number of different variables that need to be accounted for as the dollar value increases. Right now the main variable is space. With a new baby on the way, having space to store any materials/inventory for the Double Journey is an important consideration.

My first plan for this step was going to be buying older vintage bikes and fixing them up. I planned on using this step to educate myself about bikes and restoration. I did some research first and found that there wasn’t a large profit margin, and the market didn’t move all that quickly. Based on this I ditched the bike idea.

My next thought was to build a computers. I saw a guy on Used Victoria that was selling a box of computer parts (enough to build 2 older PC’s) for $10. I jumped on the deal without much thought as I figured that $10 was not much of a risk. After having all the parts and doing some research I realized that much like the bikes, there wasn’t much of a profit margin and the market was slow, especially for older computers. I could build custom computers for people, but that would mean consulation on what parts they need, what they want to do with the computer, and then of course there would be warranty issues. This seemed like a huge headache. Plus, in order to build a computer I would need space to store the parts and do all the building. This all seemed like too much of a hassle for not much return, so I sold all the computer parts for a $10 profit.

I realized that with the computer parts that I bought a large lot of bits and pieces and was able to sell them off individually for a profit. I went back to the drawing board, and after a bit of research I realized that I could apply this to a different niche. My final decision was to buy a large lot of Transformer toys, and then resell them individually. This worked out pretty well as they all fit nicely into my bedside table (at first). After a while I branched out and moved into a few other genres of toys (such as Battle Beasts, He Man etc) and eventually managed to complete step 16 which was to turn $160 into $320.

I am now moving into some of the bigger steps that have a lot more money at stake. Of course I just have to remember that I started with nothing to begin with. I was given a single penny that started this all, which means that if I lose the money in one of the steps I have no need to worry because I have nothing actually invested except my time.

The post The White Double Journey Step 16 appeared first on Chris Whiteley.

Within the talk there were a lot of Pop Culture references. Some were subtle and some were most likely only obvious to me. I had a few people ask me about some of the references that may have been missed which prompted me to put together this post showing each of the references I used in my session.

Reservoir Dogs

While not mentioned in the slides, I dressed in a black suit and skinny tie to represent the Reservoir Dogs.

Glengarry Glen Ross

In my opening slide I used a still from the scene where Alec Baldwin unleashed a torrent of ‘eff bombs‘ and tells a group of real estate agents that only the top two closers will be keeping their jobs.

True Romance

I accidentally skipped over it but was supposed to say “I haven’t done any public speaking since 1984” which is a reference to the line that Christopher Walken said after killing Dennis Hopper’s character.

The Peoples Court

To start my section on how people judge blogs I used an image of Judge Wapner handing over a gavel to Judge Milian.

Judge Dredd

To continue the judging section I used an image of Sylvester Stallone from the film Judge Dredd.

Robert Downey Jr.

I referenced a post that I wrote some time ago on “Dork and Beans” where I tried to make a statement of how I dislike how the law likes to dish out free passes to celebrities. It instead turned into an RDJ bashing session. Due to that post I received my first ever hate mail/death threats (check out the comments)

Pulp Fiction

I created a banner for the imagined Samuel L. Jackson blog called “The Art of Being Badass”

Super Mario Brothers

I used an image from the first level of the game to illustrate the point about “starting from the beginning.”

The Legend of Zelda

I used the fact that Link starts off with a wooden sword and then keeps getting a better sword as a metaphor to show how this strategy involves starting off slow and then building up.

The Legend of Zelda

I again referenced this game and used a quote from the very beginning of the game “It’s dangerous to go alone” to illustrate that we will need the help of others to be successful.

Worlds Finest Chocolates

The terrible and expensive chocolate that has been self titled “Worlds Finest Chocolate” was used to show how you can’t just ask random peole for help. You need to have some kind of credibility with people before they will help you.

From Dusk Til Dawn

I used my old man voice and modified the scene where George Clooney is looking to get a motel room.

Cheers

Continuing on the theme that you need credibility, and that you have built in credibility with your friends and family.

He Man

On the slide where I mention using the power of Facebook I showed an image of He Man and said “by the power of Facebook.” I had no magic sword to hold aloft.

Mark Zuckerberg

During my section about using Facebook I used an image of Mark Zuckerberg.

Fred Rogers

When speaking about looking for locally written blogs I used an image of Mr. Rogers.

Catch Me if You Can

In the “Stalking for Credibility” section of the session I used an image of Tom Hanks from Catch Me if You Can looking over some documents as the main image.

Wheel of Fortune

A shot of Vanna White and the puzzle board was the main image used in my “Bonus Round” section.

Rick Astley

On my final slide I had created a QR code that I was hoping people would scan. When the code was scanned it would redirect you to a page on my site that had Rick Astley singing “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

Any other references that may have come up were purely coincidental and due to the fact that I make pop culture references to illustrate my point pretty much all the time (which drives my wife crazy). I use pop culture references in pretty much all my blogs posts to illustrate some kind of point, so naturally I had to use them in my Wordcamp presentation.

Any thoughts as to what other references I should have used (Back to the Future, Goonies…)?”

The post Guide to the Pop Culture References in my 2012 WordCamp Victoria Session appeared first on Chris Whiteley.

Much like picking our nose, we all lurk on Facebook,  just not many of us will admit it to it. We use the power of Facebook to voyeuristically spy on the lives of our friends and family. I figure that along with a bit of lurking here and there we could use Facebook to better ourselves.

I was doing my usual bit of newsfeed scrolling a few days ago, and I noticed that a friend of mine updated his status to let the world know that he was sick. I thought that was pretty cool, and that I would avoid that friend for a week or two. It got me thinking to how many of my other friends were harbouring some kind of illness, and who else I should be avoiding. This all led to my awesome:

Whiteley Guide to Avoiding Your Sick Friends

1. Head to Facebook and in the search bar at the top of the page type in the word Sick (you can also use ‘ill’ or ‘flu’ or ‘spores’)
2. Choose the bottom option that says: “See more results for sick.”
3. On the results page click on the “Posts by Friends” link on the left hand side of the page.

You will then be presented with a list of your friends that have used the phrase sick/ill/flu in their status updates. Now just avoid those friends for a few weeks and you should be somewhat safe. Add this as a part of your lurking routine and enjoy being healthy.

The post Use the Power of Facebook to Avoid Getting Sick appeared first on Chris Whiteley.

I have a problem in which my wife refers to as “The Whiteley Want it Nows.” I think its pretty self explanatory, and I know I am not the only who suffers from it. In this world of everything being “instant” we have grown impatient and cannot tolerate waiting for things (I seriously can’t even wait the 2 minutes it takes to cook a Pop Tart).

Another area where the instant gratification has gone really bonkers is in communication. There are around 800 ways that a person can get a hold of me. Can’t find me on Facebook, send me a text, no luck there? Send me an email. Did you try to Tweet me? Leave a message on my iPhone, Home phone?

And after you have exhausted the list of ways to find me, I still don’t respond.

So why is that? I have been asking myself this for sometime now. I know that I procrastinate sometimes, but why do I have to wait to respond to someone instead of participating in the instant communication that is now available.

I Blame Trent and Sue

I’m sure most of us remember the “3 Day Rule” where you had to wait 3 days to call someone once you acquired their digits. Well, I think some how that really stuck with me. Not to the extent that I have to wait 3 days to call someone, but I still have to let some time pass before making some kind of response. I don’t think it was the speech about waiting 3 days to call someone that created this stigma within me, but more so it was the repercussion of responding instantly. Here is the scene from Swingers where Mike calls Nikki back as soon as he gets home:

Of course nowadays if this were to happen on Facebook it would look even more painful:

And I think this is why I do not respond to people instantly.

How many days do you take to respond? – All you “insta-responders will most likely leave a comment

The post The Movie Swingers Ruined My Communication Skills appeared first on Chris Whiteley.

I Have Come to Chew Bubble Gum and Kick Ass…

I really cannot recall how many times I have used the amazing line uttered by Rowdy Roddy Piper in the movie ‘They Live.’ I absolutely love it. Roddy walks into a bank, states his purpose, and then proceeds to deliver on his promise of kicking ass. To everyone that was listening  it was perfectly clear what his next course of action was going to be.

This “Purpose Driven, Bubble Gum Chewing, Ass Kickery” can be applied to your blog.

When someone comes to visit your blog their basic reason for being there is to read your post. Once they have completed that task, they move onto something else. That may be leaving your site, making a comment, sharing the post or shooting up a bank. Each person that visits your blog will have a different perogative and the truth is…

That Really Sucks for You.

People generally follow a pattern when they read through a blog post. They do what they have always done, and on the rare occasion they will do something out of their regular pattern. The fact is that if you want a reader to do a specific action when they have completed reading you need to tell them to do it otherwise they will just continue doing what they always have done.

Think about your blog for a moment and come up with what is the number one thing that you would like the reader to do. Here are a few ideas:

• Subscribe to the blog
• Join your newsletter
• Leave a comment
• Hire you

With many blog layouts there is just a ton of ‘noise’ on the page (ads, categories, sign up forms etc) and there is no real clear course of action. Now if you have a blog that is getting a ton of traffic this scatter gun approach may work just fine, but for those that are only getting a few hits per day you really need to capitalize on the actions of your readers. Make an adjustment to your post pages and make it abundantly clear what the reader should do next.

At the time of writing this post my main request for readers is to share the post within a few of the top social networks. Does my layout make this clear?

The post Chewing Bubble Gum, Kicking Ass & Giving Your Blog a Purpose appeared first on Chris Whiteley.

I hate lists. I can’t stand them and yet this post is about making lists. When the movie the Bucket List came out and all people would talk about was creating and doing a bucket list things got tiring really fast. I am all for uplifting movies, but more so in a “Howard the Duck” kind of way.

This post is the third in my series about how to get more comments to your WordPress blog. In the first post I covered how to get more comments through your friends and family to give your blog the appearance of awesome, and the second post covered the theory of giving back to receive comments. This last strategy is really just the shot in the dark, do it because it’s fun, hope for the best kind of strategy.

If you have been following along you should have found a number of local blogs to read on a regular basis. If that has been completed then you will need to do a bit of detective work at this point. Head to the their blogs and see if you can figure out if they are on Twitter or not. If you are followed the techniques from my last post then you most likely found them through the Twitter search.

Start following these bloggers if you haven’t already, and then put them all in a Twitter list so you can keep track of them. The first benefit is that they may recognize you from your comments and then follow you back. This will give you a great start to building a relationship with this person. The second benefit is that you can get Twitter updates of when they publish new posts. Once you have built the list then start to build relationships with these people. Don’t get all ‘Spammy Kiss Ass’ – be genuine. If you don’t like the person or their blog, then don’t follow and don’t read.

Another thing you can do is retweet their post announcements with a quick comment of your own about the post. This works great if you read a post and have nothing of value to add to the comment section. By doing this you still get to help this person get exposure and in turn they will most likely help you out as well.

Keep in mind that being a successful blogger requires a bit of work. These things take a bit of work and time to get moving, but with consistent effort you should see some results.

If you have tried any of these techniques or have a few strategies of your own please do share in the comments below. I mean really, if you are reading a series of posts about how to get more comments to your blog and don’t leave a comment after reading this then you are just a mean, mean person (besides leave me a comment and I will probably subscribe to your blog and read it, comment on it, and maybe even retweet it).

The post Drop Kicking Your Bucket List for a Twitter List appeared first on Chris Whiteley.

It’s time to step into the Delorean and cruise back to 1998 for this posts inspiration. Of course if I had a time travelling Delorean, 1998 would not be the first year I would travel to (of course I think most of my close friends know where I am going once I get my time machine). But that is a post for another day.

In 1998 the “New Radicals” released a song called “You Get What You Give.” While the song itself was the typical 90′s rebellion against consumerism and corporate America, this post was inspired by the title of the song, and the catchy tune, not really the lyrics.

A few days ago I started my series on how to get more comments on your blog posts by introducing the Facebook Test of Doom where I suggested that you use the same strategy you used when selling chocolate bars as a kid. The test itself was a success, so it’s time to move on to the next step which is really the meat and potatoes of my strategy.

Step 2: ‘New Radicals’ Approach to Getting What You Give

This is something you will need to being doing on a regular basis and I am sure you have heard it a bajillion times before now: comment on other blogs.  Wow. Lame.  Great insight right?  Well I have a spin on how and where you should approach this strategy. Yes commenting on other blogs will possibly send you more traffic, yes this traffic may yield more comments, but the usual scatter-gun approach is really just a waste of time and effort.

I am not much of a video game person, but when I was younger I really loved the role playing games.  Games like Final Fantasy where you would start out as a weak character and work to “level up” so that you became more powerful.  I plan on doing the same thing with my blog, I am starting at Level 1 and working my way up.  Level 1 is all about credibility. You can’t get comments unless you have credibility, and you can’t seem credible unless you have comments. It’s kind of like getting a credit card where the first one was a real bitch to get approved for, but after that you keep getting offers in the mail. The first post of this series worked to get the appearance of credibility.

So after we have given some appearance of credibility with our friends charging up the comment count we have to move up to the next level which is promoting your blog on a local scale. At this point don’t bother trying to push you blog to a global readership.  You either have to have something super unique, get lucky, or be backed by an online celeb. You have a much better shot locally.

Enough with the jibber jabber let’s get started.

The first step will be to find blogs to read written by people in your area, subscribe to them and then comment on them.  This works because when you leave a comment you will have an option to leave your blog’s web address and this comment will need to be moderated.  When the blog owner goes to review the comments, there is a really good chance that they will click the link back to your website.  Most times they are checking to see if you are a spammer or a legit person. Here is your chance to show that you are credible. If you have left a good comment (please don’t leave the “I just love your blog” type of comments – add value, be conversational, or funny) and seem credible, the blog owner may see you as a valued reader, and in turn comment on your posts.

When you add the link to your website try not to link to your homepage, but instead to a post you have made in the past that would perhaps interest the other blog owner (or one with lots of comments already).  This should encourage them to read the post, and hopefully provide a comment on the post.  Continue to read these local blogs that you have found and only comment when it seems appropriate, or you have something to say (in a later post I will cover what to do if you have nothing to say). By giving in this way the other blog owner may feel the need to return the favour and comment regularly on your posts. You get what you give.

The comments you make could also encourage other commentors to visit your site when they read the comment section, and these people are like gold because if they comment on one blog they like, they are also likely to comment on yours.

Along the way you will find a blog or two that really does not interest you.  When this happens just unsubscribe from them.  There is no need to continue reading a blog that you do not enjoy. Remember that aside from trying to get comments on your blog you are also reading for enjoyment.

Now that you have the technique, you will still need to find local blogs to read.  This is the appraoch that I use to find new blogs in my area:

1. Go to the Twitter Advanced Search
2. In the ‘All of these words’ section type in either ‘blog’, ‘post’, or ‘latest’ (you also try combo’s like ‘latest post’)
3. In the ‘Near this place’ section type in the name of your city (city, province/state)
4. Click Search
5. Look through the tweets to see if you can find any tweets where people are linking to the blog
6. Visit the blog and see if you can identify if the blogger is local (usually an about or contact page, post content etc)

The post Getting Your Blog Started: ‘New Radicals’ Approach to Getting What You Give appeared first on Chris Whiteley.