The Middleman Always Eats

Two hours outside the city there is an orchard with more pears than it can sell. In the city the same pears are four dollars a pound. Somebody with a borrowed van, a phone and an afternoon buys four hundred pounds at a dollar fifty, sells them through two neighbourhood groups, and drives home four hundred and fifty dollars better off. The grower, the buyers and the person in the middle all win. That person has a name, and it is not a compliment. This book is about doing the job well.

Part I is the trade itself: why moving things is real work, why you are paid for what other people don’t know, how to start with no shop, no stock and no savings, how to do it in the evenings without leaving your job, and the pride you will need to put down. Part II is the engine: carry information rather than boxes, find the buyer before the goods, three ways to price, four ways to hold nothing, your name as the moat and the second sale. Parts III and IV are what to sell, what never to touch, and eight kinds of source below retail, with the scripts for talking to makers and negotiating without a fight.

Parts V and VI are finding buyers without paying for them and closing the sale honestly. Part VII keeps you out of trouble: ten mistakes, five scams aimed at resellers, after-sales, the legal lines and the stock that kills resellers. Part VIII is growth: a light team, more lanes and towns, your own label and customers who send customers. Part IX follows six middlemen through their first year with real numbers, and Part X is the long game.

Who it is for

People with a job who want a second income from evenings and weekends, parents at home with two free hours and a phone, graduates told to start a company who would rather start earning, people climbing out of debt, and small-business owners who have noticed that the steadiest money in their trade goes to the people in between. It assumes a phone and some curiosity. It does not assume savings.