IAM2675 – CEO Provides 11-Day Process for Those Downsizing or Settling an Estate

Sushee Perumal is the CEO of MaxSold, which offers a 3-step, 11-day process to sell everything for clients who are downsizing or settling an estate. He built MaxSold from scratch into an eight-figure, customer-focused, fast-growth organization. The company now employs over 500 people across the US and Canada.

Perumal's operational success is underpinned by a strong, diverse background. He is a licensed pilot with Commercial and Instrument ratings. Academically, he holds both a Master's in Business Administration (MBA) and a degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

• CEO Hack: (1) Reading (2) Listening to a podcast for at least 15- 30 min each day
• CEO Nugget: There're no silver bullets, just red bullets
• CEO Defined: Putting the puzzle pieces together to create a vision

Website: https://maxsold.com/

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Transcription:

Sushee Perumal 00:00

You know, there are no silver bullets. It's a whole bunch of lead bullets because everyone is focused on, you know, that big red easy button and there's that elusive search for that, for that silver bullet that's going to solve all your problems.

Gresham Harkless 00:44

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gretch from the I Am CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Sushi Paramal of Max Sold. Sushi is awesome to have you on the show.

Sushee Perumal 00:53

Great, thanks for having me.

Gresham Harkless 00:56

No problem. Super excited to have you on and what I wanted to do is just read a little bit more about Sushi so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. And Sushi is the CEO of Max Sold which provides a 3 step 11 day process to sell everything for those downsizing or settling in an estate. Sushi created an eight figure customer focused, fast growth organization from the ground up with 500 plus employees across the United States and Canada. Sushi is a pilot with a commercial and instrument rating and holds a master's in business administration and a degree in electrical and computer engineering. Sushee, are you ready to speak to the I Am CEO community?

Sushee Perumal 01:31

Absolutely. Excited to get into this.

Gresham Harkless 01:33

Awesome. Let's do it. So they kick everything off. I wanted to hear a little bit more about what I call your background and what led you to start your business.

Sushee Perumal 01:39

Yeah, I met with a local auctioneer and he was providing a service that was completely unique. Like he's a live auctioneer and he sees us as a second generation live auctioneer. Like you know those old traditional bid calling where they get up on this I can't do this. I wish I could they and recite the numbers really fast on what the bits are going for. I do speak fast, but not that fast.

Gresham Harkless 02:05

Right. That's a true gift. Right.

Sushee Perumal 2:08

So he goes into clients homes to mostly to sell the goods that they have for sale due to a downsize or an estate settlement. And he was getting really unhappy about telling no to every client that a live auction. Would not meet their requirements because the cost of goods are falling. The number of people downsizing and settling in a state that's increasing. We have 10,000 people every single day becoming to the age of 65, celebrating their 65th birthday. As the population demographic grows, as a flood of goods get into the marketplace, less and less people are interested in selling the stuff that they have. He has seen a lot of spears, like fellow auctioneers, get into specialty auctions. They sell really high value, unique things like coins, stamps, original art and other higher value items. While you couldn't really hire an auctioneer in the traditional sense to sell everything that you own. So that was a big gap that he saw in the marketplace that kept widening. So he wanted to come up with a mechanism that replaces a live auction, but it still gives the high touch the live auction does. So not a Craigslist, not an ebay, not a let go, like not a Facebook marketplace, but something that provides the same level of service an auctioneer would provide. So our paths crossed and I was really interested in.

Entrepreneurship and creating something that serves a need in the marketplace and the domain expertise. You have the classic domain expertise and you have a classic, really young, enthusiastic, a ball of energy type guy that just wanted to execute out of the MBA program and I sucked my teeth into it. And here we are. This is our like, you know, we'll be completing our 10th year next, next month or next year rather. We've grown to 20 states, three provinces, 500 employees. We do about 5,000 auctions like or serve 5,000 clients like every single year. And that number has only been increasing.

Gresham Harkless 4:35

Nice. Well I definitely appreciate that. I think a lot of the beauty of technology is sometimes you have those kind of services like you mentioned auctioneer and you're able to go there and you're able to have that experience and it's always hard to kind of recreate that, you know, from a technology standpoint. But it's great to hear that you guys been able to do that to recreate that and even sounds like scale that, that I imagine to a higher level than what it could have been if it was just one person doing it.

Sushee Perumal 04:59

Right. Completely.

Gresham Harkless 05:01

Nice. So I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper. I know you touched on a little bit. Can you tell us a little bit more about maxsold, what exactly you guys are doing and, and how it works?

Sushee Perumal 5:09

Yeah, we provide a 3 step 11 day process to sell everything. And by everything I mean the art on the wall, the fine china, the figurines, even the cleaning supplies under the sink. So we do that with our local expert help process. So as long as, you know like our minimum, we don't have a minimum volume threshold but it's ideal for somebody who's downsizing or settling in a state have 20, 30% of their household to clear out. We charge 30% plus $700. So that's a, you know we set out to create like the, like the Dunkin Donuts of the auction industry or the McDonald's of the auction industry if you will. We call service providers, you know they all hem and haw, ask if you own, if you have sterling to sell, they ask if you have a vehicle, they ask if you have high end artwork because it's not worth their while to even get in the car and come see you if you don't have those high value things. But with us, as long as you're okay with our fees, we are happy to serve you. So we want to create that really nice, repeatable, predictable, clearly defined process of clearing out an estate, downsizing, liquidating a business or inventory, clear out whatever it is. So if you have a high volume of items to sell, you know we, we provide that local exploit help service in 35 metros in the US and Canada. So our, our buyers, you know it's a marketplace. So on the seller end we, we would, we have that our main bread and butter is a downsizing nest egg sale. But if you're 30 year old and you can operate an app like you might be using our do it yourself to photograph catalog, put it online. We do all the marketing, we do all the collection of payments and you would supervise the removal of the items, you know where on the fully managed side we look after it from start to end. And as a buyer you get access to like incredible items in your local community. So we don't ship the goods. So you would, you would use a service to bid on the items and as opposed to greedy for shipping, you just go next block or like a short drive to pick up the items at the designated pickup time, date and location which would be at the client's house and we would supervise those removal of the items.

Gresham Harkless 07:37

Nice. I definitely appreciate, I knew you had a lot of different kind of people that were. I guess stakeholders might be the right word that are using the site because it is essentially a place that brings so many people together to be able to sell but also people to be able to buy and people that are downsizing as you mentioned and so many of those, those life occurrences that are happening. So it's great to hear that you have that system, systematized process so that it makes it super easy for everybody that's involved.

Sushee Perumal 08:03

Yeah, completely. You know Easy is what we go for. Three step, 11 days, everything sold.

Gresham Harkless 8:08

Nice. Absolutely. So, and I know you might have already touched on this, but would you consider that to be kind of like your secret sauce, what makes you guys unique? Or it could be for you, or it could be for your organization as well.

Sushee Perumal 00:08:19

Yeah. And the unique aspect is really, you know, that we don't cherry pick. Like if you call a local auctioneer or go to a consignment place or call a local provider, you know, they are really interested in this family heir gnome, the sterling silver, or the pristine china collection. But our unique selling proposition is we can sell everything.

If we have it, we'll sell it. Like, you know, like, if you have a volume of items that need to get sold, no problem. Like, we can do it. So that's really unique. Everybody else seems kind of distracted by either the technology or by the shiny objects. Versus, like with us, like we have said, you know, like. Like we. Like our market is clear. Like, they are the. Yeah, it's a really underserved market. It's really hard to execute because it requires a lot of operational discipline as well as marketing discipline as well as a lot of logistical and operational constraints because we can execute our service in 35 metros with our local team of over 500 people. So a new organization or an existing organization to come in and provide that service in even one market is really difficult because it's a marketplace, right? You got to have the buyers, you got to have the sellers, you got to have a team, you got to have the infrastructure. So there's a lot of things that make it kind of the secret sauce. It's all of those elements coming together that really make it work. And it wasn't easy. It was really hard.

To overcome that chicken and egg problem. Like, in order to get sellers first or do we get buyers? Right. So that's really. Our unique selling proposition, is really making all of that work. When a client hires us, they're really getting a $10,000 solution for that. $700 plus 30% because there's a dedicated support team, that's a dedicated marketing team, that's an operations team, that's that local expert help. You know, there's about 3.2 million users on the website. So if you have somebody with an extensive dollar collection, we have 100 bidders just collect. Who collect dolls and can compete on bidding up those dolls as opposed to putting it in a garage sale and hope somebody would show up.

Gresham Harkless 10:48

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I definitely appreciate you for expounding upon that a little bit more. And I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app, a book or habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Sushee Perumal 11:02

You know, this is my favorite part because a hack is really something that's really hard to sustain over time, which is continuous learning. Like, you know, I'm always reading and I'm always like listening to a podcast. And not like all day long because then you don't get any work done.

To balance it, but at least 30 minutes, like to an hour a day. Like when I go running, I'm listening to a podcast, you know, when I'm just before I get to bed, like I'm reading something for 15 to 30 minutes.

Gresham Harkless 11:37

Yeah. I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice or if you can happen to a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Sushee Perumal 11:46

You know, there are no silver bullets. It's a whole bunch of lead bullets. Because like, everyone is focused on, you know, that big red easy button and there's that elusive search for that silver bullet that's going to solve all your problems, right? And millions have been made on salespeople or technology. So like consultants saying, you know, like on selling you the dream, right? Saying, hey, I get your business. It can be a billion dollar business and they can, and here are the things we could do or are they speaking really vague terms, right? Like in that, like, you know, but when you drill down on it, you realize, well, you know, like, like can you afford the, this other, this, you know, the search for that silver bullet? You know, if you look at any business, there's no single channel. It's, it's a whole bunch of different channels that work together, right? So really you have to be focused on, you know, the, like, like the, the big domains, right?

Gresham Harkless 12:50

I love that perspective. And now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote, unquote CEOs on the show. So sushi, what does being a CEO means you.

Sushee Perumal 13:01

Oh, okay, great question. Like I, I, I don't think they're say, you know, it's, it's really like, it's like the definition of CEO is really what, what the individual brings to the table. Like, you know, like Steve Jobs is a different kind of CEO from let's say, you know, Lee Iacocca, right? Like the chairman of Chrysler. So they are completely different, separate individuals, each with their different strengths. And to me, the CEO needs to continuously deliver growth by identifying the gaps and resources, whether it be, you know, resources in your team or resources in what the customer needs and being able to constantly pull that puzzle together. So in your mind, the puzzle is already solved. Like you already have a beautiful vision or picture of what your company is going to look like in the future. So you're really putting those pieces or puzzles together of the puzzle together. And it can vary day by day. But essentially it comes down to using your unique skills, capabilities, talents to pull that picture together.

Gresham Harkless 14:16

Absolutely, yeah. And I love that definition and that perspective because a lot of times you have to have that vision and sometimes that vision doesn't necessarily always isn't always, I should say clear to you and definitely may not even be clear to your clients. But you have to be able to kind of do those things that you kind of talked on about the hacks of making sure that you're reading, staying abreast of things, listen to podcasts, and I think the image can sometimes become a lot clearer and you can provide that service to your clients, not just today, but you know, five, 10 years down the line. So I love that definition, love that perspective and I truly appreciate your time. And what I wanted to do was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know and then of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about Max hold and all the awesome things you're doing.

Sushee Perumal 14:56

Great. Yeah, thanks so much. So the company MaxSord.com is great if you're just looking to buy things. If you want to sell maxsord.com sell or 1 833-MaxSold easy phone number toll free number to remember 1833 maxsold. And it's a really easy three step 11 day process to sell everything. And if you mention this podcast name in how you heard about us, you get a hundred dollars off of a service. So yeah, I want to make that available to your listeners. So 3 step 11 day process to sell everything. And the best way to get in touch with me is to go to maxilla.com contact where you'll find all the contact details. And yeah, like good work with the show. And I think it's, you know, CEOs and to be wannabe CEOs and CEOs currently look in, you know, in in making making progress need to need all the resources that they can to to contribute to the world and to build their businesses. So you know, good, good show. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Gresham Harkless 16:09

No problem. I see here. I'm super excited about this show. We're super excited about everything you're doing and I appreciate you and all the awesome things that you're doing. We will have those links in the show notes as well so that everybody you and take advantage of those offers you gave to us as well. Sushi, thank you so much again for your time and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Sushee Perumal 16:27

Great. Thanks so much.