We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sharon Smith. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sharon below.

Alright, Sharon thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you take vacations? How do you keep things going – any advice for entrepreneurs who feel like they can’t step away from their business for a short vacation?

One of the things I love most about owning my own business is being in charge of my own time. I take vacations with my family whenever possible. One of the other things I love about being my own boss is choosing who I work with. Because I only hire people I trust and care about, I feel comfortable leaving my business (and sometimes my dogs) in their care while I’m out of town. When I worked in the corporate world and didn’t have any control over who I worked with, I did not feel that my clients would be taken care of while I was out of town. I am grateful to be able to support myself with my work, and part of what I love so much about what I do is that it enables me to spend time and take vacations with my family. I sell on eBay, and because I have staff that I can trust, I can leave the shipping to my Shipping Manager who is in high school.My listings remain active which enables sales to continue whether we are on a ski trip in Frisco or a beach trip in Southern California, There’s no feeling like making a big sale while on the beach with my nieces and nephews.

Sharon, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

When my husband, Arlie, and I were married, we bought a house in San Ramon, CA, and for the first time we had a house payment. I got a job as a recruiter at a Fortune 500 company, and I was working 11 hour days. The money was great, but I was completely strung out on stress. There was no work life balance. I didn’t have the time or energy to do the things I loved like baking or working out. Saturdays I would start to unwind from the stress, but by Sunday I’d start stressing out about Monday morning. When Arlie and I started thinking about starting a family, it became clear to me that I couldn’t be the mother I wanted to be with a job that consumed me. I quit that job, and while searching for another one that paid enough to make our Bay Area house payment, I started selling things around the house that we weren’t using. Friends and family started asking me to sell for them on consignment. I thought, ‘if I can make enough to make our house payment, I won’t have to get another job.’ That was February, 2006, and I’ve never had to get another job. What I love about having my own business is that I make my own hours. My work and home life are intertwined and do not interfere with each other. I walk my dogs in the morning, take my class at Pure Barre, do my eBay shipping, walk the dogs again midday, list items on eBay, and now I teach Barre part time as well.
I help others let go of unwanted items cluttering their home and business and turn those items into cash. My customers are individuals who want a better living space free of clutter and who can benefit from the money selling that clutter will bring in. They may not have time to sell those items themselves, and I do it all for them and send them a check. Some of my clients are moving loved ones into assisted living facilities or into their homes and I help them determine what items can be sold to bring in needed income and other solutions for items that are not good candidates for eBay. I also teach others who want to start or grow their own eBay business and mentor them to grow a successful and thriving business. This enables them to be their own boss, impact the community, and support themselves and their families.

Any advice for managing a team?

One of the things I love most about having my own business is that it enables me to spend time with my nieces and nephews. I can choose when I want to list items and ship items each day, and I create a schedule that gives me a great work/life balance. I offer the same flexible schedule to my employees. I have employed over 50 people over the years, primarily high school students. Many of them are involved in sports so getting a job that works with their school and sports schedule is nearly impossible. I find out what days and times each of them is available and match it with the times that work for me. This enables them to make money and learn relevant skills running an ecommerce business while it gives me a staff of high achievers who I truly care about. As much as I want their help, I have an equally strong desire to benefit their lives as well. I believe that is the most compelling advice to managing a team and maintaining high morale in a workforce.
In 2008 my husband, Arlie was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and a few years later with terminal cancer.

This is a card one of those teenagers left for us when she went off to college. She now works in Marketing at 3M:

“there are very few adults that I listen to and actually take to heart what they say. You are of course one of them. It’s not even what you say to me personally, it’s how you react to everything that is going on around you. I can’t emphasize enough how impressed I and everyone at work is with the way you handle stressful situations. I would not have the internal strength to stay as calm and funny as you are if I had to deal with things that you have to deal with. Same with Arlie. You guys together are so active in pursuing opportunities, making people happy, and supporting each other that I could not be more sincere when saying you guys are what heroes of today look like.

I thank you for everything your job has taught me in terms of technical skills… I thank you for providing me with a safe place to come to after school and for all the people I was able to meet. ”

This came at a very difficult time in my life and with my business. I was questioning whether I was capable of running a successful business because I was struggling to make payroll and pay all the bills at the time. After reading her card I felt like I was not a failure and it was all worth it.

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

I sell on eBay. I started on eBay in 2006, and after branching out and adding my items to other sites like Amazon and Etsy, I have brought all of my focus back to eBay. My emotional attachment to eBay is my connection to the people within the organization. The many people in various eBay product teams that I’ve had the pleasure to meet and interact with over the years are amazing people who care about what they do and the eBay sellers they serve. For one things, I see that people who I met over 15 years ago are still with eBay. Also, I’ve seen them collect feedback from sellers and make those changes to their seller tools and their site. It’s not easy to create change in a large organization, and I admire their ability to pivot and adapt. eBay has had me at an event called the “Becoming eBay Summit”. This used to be an in person event with 250 or so new hires to introduce them to the eBay team. I was one of the sellers they would highlight on stage. They would introduce each of us, ask us to share a little about ourselves and let employees ask us questions so they would understand the sellers they served. One year I was invited, but I didn’t think I could make it. I had to take my husband, Arlie, to a doctor’s appointment clear across the Bay in Palo Alto and wouldn’t be able to take him back home and make it to San Jose in time. I asked if by chance Arlie could join me on stage, but I was very nervous I was putting them in an awkward position by asking. By this time Arlie was in an electric wheelchair from the toll Multiple Sclerosis had taken on his body.
Not only did they say he could join me, but when we arrived, we found they’d built a ramp onto the stage and equipped him with an earpiece microphone so he wouldn’t have to juggle holding one. He had the audience laughing, crying and cheering. It was an amazing experience. On our drive home he was already asking when I thought they’d have another event. That was 11 days before he passed away.
Despite my emotional attachment to eBay, as a business person I made it a point to also list my items on other sites like Etsy and Amazon. After listing over 150 of my 1,700 items on Amazon I found that my time was better spent listing on eBay. I new and used items being that I sell on consignment. They are primarily one of a kind, and overall they have a better sell through rate on eBay than any other site.

Contact Info:

• Website: shari-sells.com
• Instagram: shari_luvs_arlie
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shari.smith.965/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharismith/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ginoandjo
• Other: eBay store: www.7daysale4u.com