740: This Part-Time Pastor Sold $2M On Whatnot Last Year

0:00If you're selling online or in person, you're familiar with this challenge. You need people to find your products, which usually means paying for ads or hoping they stop by. Whatnot flips that. This is the live shopping platform that's exploding right now on Whatnot. You go live and sell directly to real people in real time. I've seen Whatnot climb to the top of the app store. I've seen the seller earnings, everything from small part-time projects to multi-million dollar businesses. Whatnot is the largest dedicated live shopping platform. They see what you've got, they can ask you questions, and then they buy.

0:33And what's fascinating is they keep coming back for more. Whatnot buyers are spending more than an hour a day in the app. And all that is great news for sellers. In fact, sellers on Whatnot sell 10 times more than on other major marketplaces. That's because you're not just listing products, you're building real connections with buyers. From collectibles to cookies, from resale treasures to vintage fashion, people just like you are building real audiences and real businesses on Whatnot. And for a limited time, WhatNot will match your first$150 sold in the first month. Visit whatnot.com slash sell to start selling.

1:07That's W-H-A-T-N-O-T, whatnot.com slash sell, whatnot.com slash sell. This part-time pastor sold$2 million on WhatNot last year. So live selling, as you may or may not have heard, is having a moment right now. And in this episode, we're exploring how to get your piece of the pie, even if you're not an influencer, even if you don't have a ton of e-com experience coming in. Today's guest joined WhatNot about a year and a half ago and focusing on golf products. I sold over$2 million worth of stuff so far from Golf HQ, GHQcrew.com, Clinton Benninghoff. Welcome to the Side Hustle Show. Thanks, Nick.

1:49I'm happy to be here, man. I'm excited. Me as well. Stick around. This is all new to me. You're going to have to explain it like I'm five, but we're going to get schooled on how live selling works, the best practices on the WhatNot platform, getting people to tune in, getting people to buy, and different ways to score inventory for your own WhatNot show. But my understanding, Clinton, is you were the first in the golf category to hit$100 ,000 in sales from one live stream, one live show. Is that right? That is correct. Yeah. So that was pretty early in our journey. We're about four months in roughly.

2:22And we put on a Super Bowl show where we gave away some cool like signed jerseys and helmets and stuff. But we did$100 ,000 GMB in a single show. We were live for six hours. Okay. Yeah, the first ones to do that in the golf category. And which is kind of crazy. You go into it not knowing what to expect. And six hours later, you're just standing there kind of in awe. It was a fun night. Yeah, no kidding. I'm thinking of the hourly rate on that, 100 ,000 divided by six. Okay, yeah, there's some cost of goods in there, but imagine a pretty good return there. It was a great night for sure. And it just kind of more so on our side showed us what we're capable of in this realm.

3:00Yeah, so that's four-ish months into your journey, which would be incredible for a lot of people. But let's peel it back to those early moments and figure out, well, how am I going to get anybody to tune in here? How do I even start this thing? Yeah. So we started October of 24. And honestly, we didn't start this as some big strategic move. In my office, I have just golf bags full of golf clubs that I've collected over the years. And I'd seen the app, didn't know what it was about. So one day I just, I downloaded it and I went live from my office. And I think I had like 65 people in that first show.

3:37and the people in the show were telling me how to run items because I didn't know what I was doing. They were like, well, you do this. Here's how you add the item. Here's how you sell it. And started at 10 seconds with a timer reset. And I'm like, I have no idea what any of that means. And so it was no big setup, no plan. I just kind of hit go live. And I think the first show I sold a putter, which I want to tell you about that kind of a full circle moment, but I went live the next day. And then I went live the next day and it just kind of started this snowball effect of like, this could be really good for our shop.

4:11And the rest is kind of history. Yeah. So I think that's important to take note of is you do have this brick and mortar location with a bunch of golf products. So people aren't starting with that. Maybe you're starting from your garage or you're starting from offloading stuff that your neighbors are trying to get rid of. Like there's different ways to go about it, but I like this. I'm just going to hit the button. I'm not going to overthink it. I'm going to go live. The audience is going to tell me, oh, here's how you do it, dummy. That's really kind of funny. But 65 people showing up and zero followers.

4:48Like there's no built-in audience, but people somehow found it. Yeah. I think that's the beautiful thing that Whatnot brings to the table is they have this community that knows what the app's about. They're on there looking to buy. So even in my very first show, zero followers, just hitting live, 65 people showed up to see what I was offering. And I'm sure some of those left and were like, gosh, this guy has no idea what he's doing. I don't ever want to buy from him, but it was just cool to see like on my phone. I'm like, there's 65 people in here watching me not know what I'm doing. And they they're interested in golf.

5:23This is so cool. This is awesome. Just from zero to 65 in a matter of literal seconds, just hitting go live. So in the onboarding as a buyer on the platform, it kind of asks what product categories you're interested in. Oh, I'm interested in sports equipment. I'm interested in collectibles or trading cards. And it kind of will show you stuff that's related to those categories. Yeah. So like when you come in as a buyer, whatever you click during that initial onboarding process, that's the shows that are going to pop up and generate for you via the algorithm. And that's what's so beautiful is you're not going to get hit with a bunch of things that you're not interested in.

6:00It's going to show you what you actually want to buy. Okay. So similar to other social platforms at this stage, where it's less about the followers, is more about the algorithm. And if you can be engaging and entertaining on camera, it's going to feed it to more people. Sure. Absolutely. Okay. So you sell this putter and how much, how much do you sell it for your first sale? So I think the very first sale, this putter went for like 300 bucks. So at this point, I'm like, holy smokes, this is awesome. What can I grab next? These people, they're spending money. And the full circle moment is a few months ago, the guy who bought that putter actually sent it back to me and was like, hey, this was the first item you ever sold.

6:38I want to give it back to you just as a memorial for you so that you never lose that item, the very first item you sold. And it's sitting over in the corner in a bag. Yeah, well, I picture like, you know, how restaurants would frame their first dollar kind of thing. So it was just a really cool. And that's the beauty of this community, man. There's so many good people on the app. What I've heard is it is more kind of liquidation or low price kind of auction intent where we're going to start at a low price. We're going to drive some excitement, which could be nerve wracking if nobody is tuning in.

7:10relatively few people are tuning in and you're like, I just sold this$300 putter for 10 bucks and I don't feel so great about that. So there are definitely win and lose moments. Obviously the beauty of whatnot is you can start items as an auction, but you can also start items at whatever price you want to start them at. So if you know that you need to get a number, let's just say it is a$300 putter and I need$300 out of it. I can start that item at$300. I don't have to start it down at a dollar. Now, the joy and the drama it brings when you do start an item like that at a dollar is very entertaining to watch, especially my face as I'm watching it tick up because a lot of our auctions are five to 10 seconds long with no timer reset.

7:54So you can imagine me, the stress that I feel inside watching this$300 item, hoping that it gets up to that number within those 10 seconds. In 10 seconds. These are very quick turnaround items, very quick turnaround auctions. But Whatnot offers us a platform that we can list items in a buy it now section where somebody can go in and look at our buy it now and buy something at a set price. And we can set all of our auctions at a set price too. So where we guarantee ourselves certain margins that we want to hit. What have you found works better? Definitely the auction. They call them sudden death auctions, five to 10 seconds.

8:32And I will say this, those short auctions create a buzz in the community and it actually draws more viewers in that want to swipe because that's the whole thing is you just swipe across the screen to create your bid. And so people really enjoy that. And I think it's kind of the fear of missing out. They don't want to miss out on swiping and winning an item. So we found that those auction styles that start at a dollar and go up rapidly really quick in five to 10 seconds work best for us and our community. Okay. Yeah. Impulse buy. Oh, it's only 10 seconds. I better do it now. Yeah, for sure. Okay.

9:07So you start going live consistently. Like, okay, I had this early win, sold this$300 putter on my very first stream. Hey, I can do this every day. You know, how much time are you dedicating to it in these early days and weeks? It wasn't about stepping into like the unknown. Once I did it one time, I was like, you know what? I'm kind of built for this. Like I grew up in public speaking and learning to engage crowds and not just talk at them, but connect with them. That's kind of my, my heart. People are my heart. You know, I'm a pastor part-time, so I enjoy doing this. So when I went live for the first time, that second day, I was like, Oh, this is going to be awesome.

9:45I get to talk to people through a camera and 65 people showed up. I wonder how many is going to show up tomorrow. And this, this isn't just e-commerce. I'm actually hosting a community of people and I get to show them like what all this, what this is about. So those early days that I went live, I was live for maybe 30 to 45 minutes. But as it started going on, I was going live a couple hours on a Tuesday and a couple hours on a Thursday. And so it started building up from just maybe an hour a week to two hours a week to four hours a week till now this is a full-time gig. Yeah. And it sounds like you got other people on the streams now, like there's a whole staff and people start to know the different personalities behind it.

10:29Correct. Yes, sir. Talk to me about the inventory side. If I don't have a brick and mortar store, like if I want to tap into this, is it important to have a niche like, oh, we're going to be the go-to people for great deals on golf gear? Or could it be a little bit more broad if I'm sourcing from we did an episode on B-stock sourcing, where it's like these customer return liquidation auctions from Costco and government surplus auctions and stuff. Like, do you need to niche down? Well, certainly niching down helps, right? Because you can build a community around that certain niche. It's not necessary because the beauty of whatnot is whatever you're selling, you're going to find viewers that are looking to buy that item.

11:12While we're specific in the golf category, we sell a lot of hats that aren't really golf specific. And so we found a crowd that's coming in to find these certain hats. It's called Waggle. It's a certain brand, but they're not golf specific hats. They have all kinds of crazy designs on them. So we're getting people that are kind of outside the golf category coming in to buy these hats because they know we're going to sell them on our shows. And whatever you're selling, you're going to get people in there to buy those products. Got it. What advice would you have for people trying to source some profitable inventory for this?

11:43Sure. So if I didn't have the brick and mortar, what would I do? How would I get product? In the golf category specific, I would go to local pro shops and look at what stuff that's been sitting there. Build a relationship with the pro or the manager. Find stuff that's been sitting there and maybe last year's product and say, hey, I'm willing to take this off your hands. Also, searching online, there's tons of websites that are in the golf category that sell used equipment. Facebook and Instagram, posting on your story and saying, hey, do you guys have golf clubs laying in your garage? I'm more than willing to buy those off you if they've been sitting for a while, hitting up local garage sales and estate sales.

12:20You can find all kinds of stuff just in your local community, not even searching abroad. You can find it in your local town by just doing a little bit of research. And social media is a huge one. Okay. We had a listener of the show who was in the Amazon Influencer Program, and he built it up to the point where he was getting free product from brands to do these video reviews. sometimes even getting paid to do the video reviews, which is cool. Oh, wow. So he would earn the review fee, the free product, the commissions on anything that actually sold. And then what he would do when he would have stock room got full of stuff or the garage filled up with stuff, he would start to do the whatnot live selling.

12:59Hey, let's go through the inventory. It was like a triple, quadruple dip on this one. It was like, that's a pretty interesting way to do it, too. For sure. Yeah, that is an interesting thing. And I wonder what's the fine print behind that, if you will. There was an example of not niching down. It was like whatever products you could get. Yeah, for sure. But it's an interesting strategy to go partner with other retailers. Hey, we'll take your clearance inventory off your hand and basically trying to buy low, sell high, but with a new twist or a new marketing channel for it. Yeah. And to speak to that, like, you know, being on the brick and mortar side as well.

13:29Man, at the end of the season, our shop was always full of stuff that man just set. And, you know, we put it on sale and try to move it. But, you know, we're always left with a bag full of clubs and a box full of hats and a rack full of shirts. And so knowing that somebody could have came in and been like, hey, I'm willing to buy all of this. How much do you want if I take it all? Yeah. That would have been a huge for us years ago before whatnot. Okay. And now you have your own channel to get rid of some of this unsold stuff. Correct. Yeah. As a pie chart, is the online sales, how does that compare to the brick and mortar foot traffic now?

14:07When we got into whatnot back in October, this was before we knew what was going to happen to golf economy here in West Texas. So we went live and it started booming and building into 2025. Well, in 2025, we lost three local golf courses here. Wow. Which we have a total of six golf courses in West Texas. So three of those right off the top disappeared overnight. And so the golf economy started doing this in Midland. It started going down. well, this e-commerce and whatnot started picking up right at the right time. So it was kind of a godsend. Last year, we did just over$2 million on the app. In the store, we did a little over $3 million.

14:49And so the brick and mortar is still going to do more, but whatnot has been a very healthy backdoor for us as far as the golf economy goes here. Right. Because all of a sudden, instead of serving the immediate 20-mile radius, you can now serve people all around the world, I assume, if it's international shipping too. Yes, sir. That's exactly right. More with Clinton in just a moment, including the shipping and logistics side of the business, as in what happens when you need to ship out$100 ,000 worth of merchandise in two days, plus his tactics for turning one-time viewers into loyal members of the Golf HQ community.

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17:53So when somebody wins the auction or they buy this thing, what happens on the back end to fulfill that product? Talked about that process. Oh boy. So I'm going to go back to our Super Bowl show where we did$100 ,000. We sold 600 golf clubs in that six hour span. And so we're still pretty new to this process of shipping. And I want to plug Whatnot here because they make the actual printing labels for it super, super streamlined. They provide the label, the buyer pays the shipping. At the end of a show, we reconcile everything and then it gives us a printout of all the labels. So if you have a label printer, you just click a button, it prints out all the labels for you.

18:36and so we have the packing slip and label provided by whatnot so what comes next is packing 600 golf clubs and so we kind of was like on cloud nine the night we finished the show but then we get here the next morning and we're like oh crap we have 600 golf clubs that we have to ship out yeah i remember which one was going to which person yeah it's a whole thing correct so we we were looking at golf clubs because we labeled them like with a number and so we were of finding the numbers that matched up with the packing slip. So as we learned, we actually hired a full-time staff that ships for us after shows.

19:14And we use a software called Hot Label during our shows that actually prints off a label with the buyer's name, the item they bought, what time they bought it, and how much they bought it for. And then each item gets tagged with that tag so we can match it up with the packing slip. So our shipping process has become a lot more streamlined, But those early days were a steep learning curve of we got to get these golf clubs out in a very timely manner. Whatnot gives us 48 hours to ship, not including Saturdays and Sundays. So you have 48 hours to get it to the USPS or UPS hub. And that way it can be on its way in a timely manner.

19:53Yeah, pretty tight turnaround. And maybe because of, you know, we're all spoiled by prime shipping and just the excitement of buying something live is like, well, I want it now. It's this immediate gratification. Correct. Yeah. Do you end up charging the customer for shipping? Is it flat rate? I mean, it's bigger, sometimes bigger items. How does that work? So it's based on prebuilt forms that we put into our shows based on. So we have a skew for clubs. We have a skew for bags. We have a SKU for lighter items that go USPS. So every auction that we put in will be pre-tagged with a shipping SKU.

20:30And so it's all based off of weight and size. And so the buyer will pay whatever the shipping is for that item based on where they are in the United States. So all of our clubs and bags ship via UPS. And all of our lighter items, apparel, hats, accessories will ship USPS. And so when the buyer pays for that shipping, again, Whatnot provides us a label. It's super streamlined, super easy process. The only thing we have to do is provide the box packing material and ship it out. Got it. So buyers paying shipping and so they win the item for$100 and then it tax on the$15 shipping or whatever. Okay.

21:08Correct. And then also we bundle ship. So they may buy one item and then the next four items is free shipping because we can pack it all in one box. Oh, okay. Got it. Got it. So increase the average order size, encourage people to buy more, which is something that you've done a really good job. I mean, you've got your crew hat on right now. It's the GHQ crew. And it's like starting to build this sense of community. And I imagine you see some familiar screen names or usernames showing up day after day. Yeah, man. It is so incredible. That's the beauty of this is we've actually built a community.

21:42And I always say the golf community on Whatnot is the best community because all the sellers go into each other's shows. We give away stuff in other people's shows. They give away stuff in our shows. And we recognize most of the people that are coming into our lives. And we answer comments live. We engage constantly because that's the big thing. People want to feel seen. They want to feel heard. They want to know that they're not just a number that purchased an item from us. They want to feel like they belong. We wanted it to be relational and not transactional. And so we turned viewers into regulars and those regulars into this big community that shows up every show.

22:20And I think this is the biggest thing I want people to know is people aren't going to stay because you offer the best price. They're going to stay because they feel like they belong to a community every time they show up. So are you shouting out names like, hey, I see you in the crowd or like, how are you fostering some of that? Absolutely. So when you show up into our show, it actually will say so-and-so is here. And so we're calling out people as they show up into the show. And then as they comment, hey, Clinton, hope you're having a good day. I'm responding to comments live. I'm making sure I'm acknowledging everybody that's kind of engaging in the chat as much as I can.

22:55Right. Because at one point we had 1600 people in our show. And so you can imagine the comments are just going crazy. Yeah, that would kind of break my brain a little bit of trying to do it all at once. Yeah. And so obviously you get better with it the more you do it. But I try to respond to comments as they're coming through. Sometimes we miss some. We're not the best at it. But we're always engaging with the people because, again, we want them to feel like they're a part of the crew. And that's kind of how we branded that is you are a part of the crew. You are a part of this community. Yeah.

23:24You mentioned going on other people's lives in the category, which is a great way to kind of cross promote, cross pollinate. Anything else that you found to kind of lift up or get more reach for the show? Social media is a huge one. We have Instagram, we have Facebook, we have a YouTube channel. We've obviously cross pollinated across our Facebook and Instagrams and our YouTube. We promote our shows on there as well. Do you do it like kind of a simulcast? Like we're also going live on YouTube, on Instagram at the same time? So Whatnot offers that. You can simulcast straight over to YouTube at the click of a button from when you start your show.

24:04And the beauty of that, when somebody watches live in YouTube, they can actually come on over to Whatnot via a link. Obviously, they can't bid live on YouTube, but they can click the link and come over to the Whatnot show. And we found that that's brought some traffic over as well. The biggest thing I've found that helps is actually going into other shows and supporting other sellers, not even just in the golf category. We go across the app into other shows. And it's not that we're going to promote. We're going to support other sellers so they know that they're not alone in this. even new sellers.