Diary of Opening A New Business

[andviv]

What Samuel does is build his own lists from different sources. There are a variety of ways to build your own lists from scratch, at no or low cost, which are better quality than what you can buy from these list brokers.

Please tell me you are working for Samuel now and learning like crazy, so you can replicate the system.

 

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[oddball]

I'm so impressed that its discouraging. 200,000 sq ft? Does anyone realize how big that is? Jack I didn't realize your sales people were leasing out jets hahah. I remember two years ago hearing that was a new hot industry. I was actually given the "opportunity" to work for this new company and I should have jumped on it..... They had a "black book" of celebs and super wealthy after all.

When I read his post that amazed me. My day job is in commercial real estate, I was just in a 120,000 SF warehouse a couple weeks ago, massive. Amazing how fast he is growing.

 

[s168]

Please tell me you are working for Samuel now and learning like crazy, so you can replicate the system.

Hi Andviv,

It may sound very odd, but he has offered me a job to work for him twice and I turned him down both times. His previous employer offered me a job too and I turned them down. To quote again exactly what I wrote before... "I know of the businesses Samuel does, and I don't support it from a sales and business ethics standpoint". I don't want to go into any further details but, needless to say, I have personal fundamental issues with that aspect of the business and hence why I will not get involved. The money can be amazing for those very few who are cut out for making these sales calls day in day out, but that just isn't for me. I would guess that over 95% of his staff don't last more than a few months, for a variety of reasons.

Having said that, I have a lot of good info shared with me from those on the inside including his exact sales pitches, which I can see includes a lot of NLP and breaking down of barriers and rejections from prospects. There is a lot of manipulative use of language, emotive pressure sales methods and psychological persuasion tactics used. It's all very clever. It is a cold-calling business after all, so things like building trust and looking/appearing the part are all musts.

As for his lists... I know exactly where he gets them from. It's actually freely and publicly available information.

His system is quite easy to replicate, and I intend to do the same once I have figured out a product and/or service to sell. I certainly don't want to be in the same niche as him, even though the money is amazing. There are just some things that I won't do, and it goes against my personal beliefs and views on things.

 

[Mike39]

Hi Andviv,

It may sound very odd, but he has offered me a job to work for him twice and I turned him down both times. His previous employer offered me a job too and I turned them down. To quote again exactly what I wrote before... "I know of the businesses Samuel does, and I don't support it from a sales and business ethics standpoint". I don't want to go into any further details but, needless to say, I have personal fundamental issues with that aspect of the business and hence why I will not get involved. The money can be amazing for those very few who are cut out for making these sales calls day in day out, but that just isn't for me. I would guess that over 95% of his staff don't last more than a few months, for a variety of reasons.

Having said that, I have a lot of good info shared with me from those on the inside including his exact sales pitches, which I can see includes a lot of NLP and breaking down of barriers and rejections from prospects. There is a lot of manipulative use of language, emotive pressure sales methods and psychological persuasion tactics used. It's all very clever. It is a cold-calling business after all, so things like building trust and looking/appearing the part are all musts.

As for his lists... I know exactly where he gets them from. It's actually freely and publicly available information.

His system is quite easy to replicate, and I intend to do the same once I have figured out a product and/or service to sell. I certainly don't want to be in the same niche as him, even though the money is amazing. There are just some things that I won't do, and it goes against my personal beliefs and views on things.

Hmmmm....

[video=youtube;4zakyg3thfY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zakyg3thfY[/video]

Served a bit of time in jail, high pressure sales tactics, 2k+ per sale, this sounds like some real boiler room shi!t haha

 

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[theag]

Talking about boiler rooms.. "wolf of wall street" is a pretty good great.

 

[Mike39]

My guess is he's selling something in the financial market, all I can say if hopefully the operation he is running can't land him back in the joint.

Talking about boiler rooms.. "wolf of wall street" is a pretty good great.

It's a great read, it should teach you exactly what not to do with your life, kind of like the bible of what to avoid

 

[OnePerCent]

Thanks everyone for your replies. Things are going very well. Our main office is now over 6k sq feet, and I control about 75k feet in warehouse space. Soon to be 200k. Still hope to be bought out in a year or so, have added a zero to what I expect.

Lot of work still to do, I have taken the biz into new directions I didn't even consider when we opened.

Congratulations, you are inspiring a lot of entrepreneurs.

 

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[FrankSmith]

Any updates Jack?

 

[Dilshad]

I see a lot of these threads started by young entre's and thought I would start my own on a new business I am starting this week. I think it might be a good insight to what it takes to make it. Or what it takes to fail at it.

My goal. Turn a (hopefully only) $15k investment into a $10 million dollar a year business within 24 months. (last business I started with under $10k, we did $4.5 million in sales in 36 months and sold out to a major player in that industry). To do that I am going to have to go from zero employees (as of last week) to say 100 in under 24 months.

If you guys like I can keep an account of what is actually happening week to week. the trials and tribulations, the hiring's, the firing's, the bills, the sales, etc.

I am not going to tell you what business I am starting, (name or industry) but I will say, I am not reinventing the wheel here. This is a business a ton of people are doing and make a lot of money from, A lot on this site, I just THINK I have come up with a niche, and a different way to market it. So I am going to give it a try. (no need to reinvent the wheel)

Where am I at?

Expenses

- Just rented a small office last week, 800 sq ft. $1,500 down $750 a month (signed a month to month lease, with the ability to move up to 2,000 sq feet quickly, then to 4,000 sq feet, which is about the size I need.)
- Bought 5 used computers - $900
- Bought 6 Voip phones - $1,000
- Bought 6 headsets - $750
- Cable is going to be installed tomorrow. $220 a month
- Phone lines through a voip service $250 a month
- Incorp with proper books, $1,000 (lawyer on retainer)
- Talked to the CPA about becoming my part time book keeper ($200 a month)
- General liability policy $440 for the year. (once I have a few more employees, need to add some sort of workers comp)
- Set up payroll company
- Set up bank account

Office already had some junky old furniture that will do, but I am buying new chairs, some plants and pics. $1,000 bucks

Have main website almost done, as we will be charging on monthly automatic renewals, and sometimes taking payment info by phone, still trying to get the merchant account set up.

Employees,
- Tons of infrastructure work to do, hired a college degreed in marketing guy to be my right hand man. $3,000 a month to start, Add $1,000 a month every month to 9k a month as long as sales justify. (tons of work to do)
- Hired my sales manager, starts Wed, and we will start selling Thursday. She will help write the scripts, make changes and manage the sales force. ($17 an hour plus override comm bonus from sales team)

Goals for this week,

Make 1 sale, set up a sales system, finish website writing,(or just keep updating).

Goals for next week, (once we have the script down) hire 4 more salespeople, pay $13 an hour plus commission.

I am back in the game.... Now it is time to have some fun.

Note about me: I have been a serial entrepreneur for over 20 years, started a small business when I was 20, with no money (no parents money either, they asked me for money), it worked, thank god, (I have not had a boss for 20 years) I have owned a lot of businesses, from a bunch of retail stores, to a huge wholesale operation with 60 employees, then another wholesale operation in a total different industry just to see if I could. ( Also the bad, I have spent at least 1 million over the years trying businesses I should have never gone into, I did it because I thought I was smart, I lost a lot of money, but learned a lot)

Thanks for reading..

Very informative....thanks for the details, maybe you can help me as well. It seems from your post that you started business from scratch. I am in no shape or even form to begin from that lane. My mission is franchise....but of a Urgent Care or Hospital. How does this sound, if only ONE manager is needed to handle the urgent care? For right now I can invest $10,000 to $20,000, so I might go into (for right now) into the real estate business. Though mission is to open up a Urgent care which would cost one million dollars. That will be no problem in future for me. But overall what is your intake in this?

 

[The-J]

24 months later. Wonder if he got to the $10 mill mark.

 

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[roc]

Hey Jack, I noticed through the threads that you have your sales team making the calls and so fourth. Is there a reason why you didn't go through a call center and have everything setup through them?

 

[JEdwards]

Very informative....thanks for the details, maybe you can help me as well. It seems from your post that you started business from scratch. I am in no shape or even form to begin from that lane. My mission is franchise....but of a Urgent Care or Hospital. How does this sound, if only ONE manager is needed to handle the urgent care? For right now I can invest $10,000 to $20,000, so I might go into (for right now) into the real estate business. Though mission is to open up a Urgent care which would cost one million dollars. That will be no problem in future for me. But overall what is your intake in this?

Ask me when you have the million...

24 months later. Wonder if he got to the $10 mill mark.

You never know.... I might but you might never, well until I post after the sale

Hey Jack, I noticed through the threads that you have your sales team making the calls and so fourth. Is there a reason why you didn't go through a call center and have everything setup through them?

I would not want to pay double for something I cannot control and make changes to when needed.. And it is way to late to outsource it.

 

[Lionhearted]

You never know.... I might but you might never, well until I post after the sale

Thank you for this whole thread Mr. Jack Edwards as well everyone else who has contributed.

As far as what you are selling I think it is irrelevant as you have already stated that it is boring and common. I am more interested in how you started? What you needed to learn? Did you take business courses? What was your education to do this? Everybody asks,"how much did you invest?" I am not interested in your initial investment as the seed capital of any great venture is an idea and a penny that was made into two then four then eight so on and so on. But I digress. My hurdle is that I do not know the business systems (accounting, CRM and so on). Do recommend working in business to learn the systems that run the operation or school? Also would you recommend working in sales as well to learn the ropes? Did you have a mentor? I am more interested in evolving myself into the person that can do what you can do and beyond. I come from an IT background but I am burning out in that direction and I have always wanted to learn how to set up and run a large business system as you have.

I love MJ's book and how he is giving back by having this forum. Although Robert Kiyosaki is just another one of the so called "gurus" MJ talks about Robert does have one main valid point and that is that you will never get rich working for another man and only those who know and own successful "business systems" (what I call companies) will ever be rich.

 

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[Jake]

https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/fastlane/45141-my-1000th-post-lose-job-now.html#post267086

 

[Arrabista]

Hi Jake,

Just wanted to convey my gratitude for a great thread and for everyone one else who contributed.
Enlightening stuff.. I am actually pleased that you have not shared what the business product is.. I feel the take out from this thread is the invauable process that you have gone through and the phenomenal ACTION you are taking everyday in your life....
the process and the methodology are the important things to focus on as well as taking action of course... very inspiring
Thank you very much Jake

Arrabista

 

[HD_edacity]

Wow amazing stuff and very informative, I've read through this thread before but its amazing how often i keep coming back to motivate myself and to learn a thing of two. How you turned a 15k investment to a this huge business is very inspiring, my goal is to have that kind of tenacity one day .

One question, did you always have complete confidence when executing your business and when talking to potential sales/distributors or did you build it up after years of experience?


Please keep us updated, your the man !

Edacity.

 

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[OnePerCent]

Hi Jack, no more updates about the business?

 

[JEdwards]

Things are going great. Having fun. Making money. Just building more equity at this point, just the time it takes to grow. Sold a small portion of the business to a national company not to long ago. Trying to position the business to sell out in the next year or so.

Only time will tell.

 

[Eskil]

Just building more equity at this point, just the time it takes to grow. Sold a small portion of the business to a national company not to long ago. Trying to position the business to sell out in the next year or so.

That process would make for one awesome INSIDERS's call... *hint*

 

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[OnePerCent]

Sold a small portion of the business to a national company not to long ago.

You planned that. Glad to read biz is flowing great

 

[JEdwards]

That process would make for one awesome INSIDERS's call... *hint*

Or a really bad INSIDERS call.

 

[Eskil]

Or a really bad INSIDERS call.

Lol, I highly doubt that.

 

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[i3ond]

I just spent several hours reading this entire thread.

To start you:

Had an idea.
Leased a cheap small office month by month.
Made it a corporation using an attorney to do the legal work.
Used an cpa for the book keeping.
Used a payroll company.
Created a business bank account
Created a business merchant account?
Created the website
Took out a liability insurance policy.
Bought 5 cheap computers.
Bought an expensive voip system.
Bought 6 expensive headsets
Bought cable internet
Bought some cheap furniture that didn't match.
Hired two managing staff. Gave them decent base pay + decent commissions

Trained the managing staff a couple days and then went into interviewing/hiring of sales people.

You hired 4 sales agents.

1 manager left.

You hired another manager that you've worked with before.

You had sales people quit and you hired more to replace them.

You had voip issues which made your sales people ineffective.

You had more people quite and you hired people to replace them.

You replaced the voip with landlines.

You started making leads

People stopped quitting so much.

Friday was Ferrari Friday

You started making more closes's

You started to make a slight profit

You moved and expanded

Less people are quitting

You have your managers take more of a leadership role

You move to a larger location

You start investing less time.

Managers start to take your role.

The corporation starts making decent gains

And a similar continuous pattern....



You distribute, market and sell a niche products. You have a warehouse with forklifts and ect. And for some reason I think the products are from china.

You sold a portion of the company. But you haven't reached the goal of a 25m buyout.



It feels like i'm missing a lot here.

It seems the majority of your problems are people problems.

Is this true? How would you rate your leadership skills on a scale of 1-10? Ten being best.

What is your leadership style or method?

What would you differently if you started over?

How are you going to make sure you don't get out to early like you have in the past?

 

[workingtitle]

Hi Jack,

When you find the time, I would love to hear an update on how this is going.

 

[FrankSmith]

Been a while since I last checked the thread, any updates...

 

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[JEdwards]

Same ole, same ole. Just growing here and there.

 

[qewrtyass]

its envy to see experienced business savvy setup new business like no brainer.

 

[Tom.V]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to JackEdwards again.

Finally got around to giving this a read, hit home with me. Except I'm more like your all-in-friend with $15k and about 8 full time employees. Thanks for sharing this Jack, much much appreciated.

 

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[FrankSmith]

Jack, how many products do you have in your line now from the number you started with?

 

[oddball]

My goal. Turn a (hopefully only) $15k investment into a $10 million dollar a year business within 24 months. To do that I am going to have to go from zero employees (as of last week) to say 100 in under 24 months.

Where am I at?

Expenses

- Just rented a small office last week, 800 sq ft. $1,500 down $750 a month (signed a month to month lease, with the ability to move up to 2,000 sq feet quickly, then to 4,000 sq feet, which is about the size I need.)
- Bought 5 used computers - $900
- Bought 6 Voip phones - $1,000
- Bought 6 headsets - $750
- Cable is going to be installed tomorrow. $220 a month
- Phone lines through a voip service $250 a month
- Incorp with proper books, $1,000 (lawyer on retainer)
- Talked to the CPA about becoming my part time book keeper ($200 a month)
- General liability policy $440 for the year. (once I have a few more employees, need to add some sort of workers comp)
- Set up payroll company
- Set up bank account

Office already had some junky old furniture that will do, but I am buying new chairs, some plants and pics. $1,000 bucks

Have main website almost done, as we will be charging on monthly automatic renewals, and sometimes taking payment info by phone, still trying to get the merchant account set up.

Employees,
- Tons of infrastructure work to do, hired a college degreed in marketing guy to be my right hand man. $3,000 a month to start, Add $1,000 a month every month to 9k a month as long as sales justify. (tons of work to do)
- Hired my sales manager, starts Wed, and we will start selling Thursday. She will help write the scripts, make changes and manage the sales force. ($17 an hour plus override comm bonus from sales team)

Goals for this week,

Make 1 sale, set up a sales system, finish website writing,(or just keep updating).

Goals for next week, (once we have the script down) hire 4 more salespeople, pay $13 an hour plus commission.

Going back to your first post, it has been about 3 years since you started, how do you stand in terms of your goals? I know in another post about 1 year back you talked about adding a 0 to the sale price and were hoping to be bought out in a year or so, just curious on a general update.