Ultimate Bootstrap: I'm making $200,000+ doing Residential Sales

[Silverhawk851]

My turn to add the little value I can to people's lives!


I've recently been making decent change while I bootstrap some capital together to start up and fund my fastlane venture.

I have decided I'm going to be a big player in Real Estate and a couple other businesses, but all requires capital; bills have to be paid, and you can only grow as fast as your spending ability allows.

After doing all the whining and complaining, I realized 0 people who give a damn about my ambitions.

So I began venturing and scanning my surroundings, canvassing my network for opportunities that will pay me well.

And if you search long and hard enough, something will click.


I approached an HVAC energy company in Toronto, got a contract as a marketing company, doing residential sales for rental HVAC equipment. Door-to-Door.

I told them I can increase their sales by X amount, and it can be only straight commission. Pay me once the services are sold and installed. Luckily my company had a lot of employees leave for holidays, school, etc, which opened up a need.

I've set it up so that our service allows customers to upgrade any old furnace or AC without paying a dime out of pocket, and offset costs on their energy bills so they stay exactly the same.

Their net cost is ZERO dollars.

best part is that I get paid over $1000 for every deal I sign and have hired close to 10 guys at this point.

The average guy closes 2 deals a day, in 6 hours of knocking doors, that's 3hrs/deal. 10 guys doing 2 a day, thats 20 deals a day.

There is a however a cancellation rate, where some deals will get cancelled, say 60%.

Still 12 deals a day. I.e. $12,000.

Some days the sales are low, some days high, some days average.

Guys are making $200,000 to $800,000 a year doing this. It's not the easiest job in the world, but $250,000 beats the crap out of $40K retail jobs with the same hours

Not to mention I can talk my way into, out of, inside and over anything. And I used to think picking up girls was hard Lol


I want to note that this is tough for me to write, because of the slowlane but justified fear of "increasing competition", but hey somebody introduced me once, and maybe I can someone improve their life.

Feel free for questions.
*Please refrain from questions too direct regarding who I'm working for, I am under contract and cannot answer.

 

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[Silverhawk851]

I'm not debating that the lifetime value will exceed $1000, it might over $3000, but when you take into consideration all of the other costs involved I still don't understand how $1000 commission is charged. I'd definitely be interested to hear from Silverhawk on how they came to this figure, whether it is an industry standard etc..

If I was an employee I'd quit right away if I knew my boss was getting $1,000 commission for my 3 hours of work PER sale.
That'd mean I'd earn $69 on average for every sale I made, and my boss would make $1,000.
iAm I missing something lol? That's quite impressive.
How much are your clients paying upfront once they've signed the dotted line?

Was waiting for someone to ask this question, it was something I'd been asking myself and took me years to figure out.

How are these guys paying $1500 upfront to me and my sales team, despite the lifetime value being over $10K? Who would do that/ has that kind of a bankroll to float for so long?

After delving into the behind the scenes, what the company was doing was getting these contracts by having us sign people up, for $60/month, as rentals. The average customer stays for 20 years, that's 12 months x 20 years x 60 dollars = $14,400 Customer Lifetime Value.

What they do is take that contact, and sell it as a note for 50cents on the dollar to other private investors, VCs firms, etc, putting $7,200 in their pocket immediately.

Pay me $1500-2000 and pocket the rest.

In hindsight, all the guy really did was get a contract with the Furnace/AC manufacturer for wholesale pricing, hire a sales team and get contracts, hire a maintenance company just in case, and then just unload the contracts.

For every one sale the owner was making somewhere between $3000-$4000 almost immediately.

At the time, all the people in top management were driving a $150K car at minimum, trips to Bahamas every week. Didn't add up at the time...makes sense now.

I've actually had this contact end and have pivoted the focus for my online company on more online stuff these days.
Was a great experience while it lasted.

 

[Silverhawk851]

ow was it you were able to set it up where you, your employees, and the HVAC company are all profiting from this,
if the customer doesn't have to pay anything out of pocket? Is this a type of rebate deal?

There are other companies that have set up customers with horrible plans where customers are paying upto $45/month for a guy to run his eyes up and down their HVAC and say "your good" twice a year. We offset those useless services with something tangible.


Essentially it's rentals for HVAC, something that is very common here in Ontario, Canada. Almost 85% of the population already rents their water heater from different companies.

Nice! Wonder if you have any opportunity to scale or streamline this a bit by generating leads online - in theory at least, one of your sales guys phoning a [by definition, interested] lead should be able to convert sales a lot more, or at the least book appointments for the guys on the ground. On the other hand there is a cost associated with buying the traffic of course...

The company tried it, but it's far too expensive due to the lack of knowledge about HVAC equipment in the general population, average guy does not know a damn thing about what's going on with his heating/cooling.

Do you pay your employees an hourly wage or are they commission based too?

Are they aware of how much money a single deal brings in?

Purely commission, and they love it. Yes, I pay them $700 or above for each deal they bring in, keep it around 60-85% of the total payout. That's near the best in the industry. Keeps them happy knowing I'm looking out for them, and I'm willing to sacrifice a little bit to do that.

Are you doing this full time or do you have a job/school?

I Never do anything half-assed, so full-time for me. hahah Flint you make me laugh Does this not count as a job I don't get it

60% or 40% cancellation (not sure which because of the way you worded it) seems very high, what reasons do they give to cancel. I assume its high pressure and they end up thinking its too good to be true?

Exactly, plus it's a high-turnover business employment-wise, so the more rookie of a salesperson you are the higher your cancellations. I have alot of rookies right now, it's around 40% right now, it will come down to 25% once the skillset solidifies.

I'm hoping your model is very different, but the 60% cancellation rate indicates something is shady.

Those are short lived scams. This a reputable HVAC company, and compete with industry billion-dollar giants offering almost the same services (obviously mine are better )

I'm saving people hundreds of dollars monthly and giving them a free furnace/AC while I'm at it. It's a little different.

Customers LOVE to see me take off B.S charges like "carbon offsets", or "Gas Supply Charge" (which are B.S intangible charges for no reason whatsoever) and watch their bill go from $200/month to 30/month , and I love helping them which pays me

 

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[Silverhawk851]

How does one even come up with stuff like this? Reading people's ideas on this forum makes me feel like the stupidest person. How did you stumble upon this idea silverhawk?

hey man, the only stupid thing is to think that way. I came from nothing. All I did was learn a skill (to sell) and find someone who needed it.

Read this article, and keep it as the holy grail of your mindset.

LEARN SKILL THAT PROVIDE VALUE. RINSE AND REPEAT. OVER. AND OVER. AND OVER.

hysical goods, sold them at the door. Cheap product, got them for $4 and sold them for $15, paid $1 to charity and $5 to the salesman (unless I was the one selling). By a stroke of luck, the product just happened to work well for my area; I would share it but it most likely wouldn't be applicable to anyone else's location and I don't want to steer anyone in the wrong direction.

Solid work. Keep up the value creation!

So how did you go about contacting the company, was a cold call ...what was your whole process of getting the company to sign a contract with you ?

Initially got hired as an employee by another marketing agency last year; I just wanted to learn how to sell. This year got news they had people leave, took the opportunity. Showed them value, they went for it.

All about providing value. Just recently learning how true MJ is. LETS GET ITTT.

 

[JAJT]

To add to SilverHawk's message about buyer ignorance - it's totally true.

I live in Ontario and you could put a gun against my head and ask me if I own or rent the water heater or furnace and I'd probably wimper "own" but that's a total guess. I'm going to go check that out right now

Keep in mind what he's doing is also HARDLY rare here. I get salespeople knocking on my door every damn week that follow the same basic principle - "It won't cost you anything, we'll save you money, if we can just come in and inspect....".

Furnace and water heater salesmen are here every other week. The popular one right now is "at the source" water filtration units. Stops nasty "chemicals" from entering my drinking water which would otherwise poison my children and probably kill the neighbors dog if I leave the sprinkler on (that's a joke but they DO lay it on that thick). Luckily I'm eligible for a free installation at the low monthly rental rate of...

All three of these groups practically storm the house trying to get inside to talk about this stuff - I have to basically block the door entrance with my body or they'll end up inside my house. It's ridiculous as a customer but it tells you how hard it is as a salesperson.

Personally the sales guys I love the tactics for are the driveway asphalt repair guys. Their value and proposition is immediately tangible and low-stress. Before they even knock on the door they have a filled out, custom quote in their hand for the cracks in my driveway. Goes something like "Hey, we'll be in your area next week doing all your neighbor's driveways so you get a special group discount since we're doing the whole street. You've got 4 cracks in your driveway we can fix for this amount if you are interested. Also the company makes me say that this is only good for when we're here next week - if you call us after we've left it costs a lot more to re-bring the equipment and staff out for a one-off order...". I've considered signing on the spot with those guys every single year with how slick and awesome they make the process but luckily I care more about money than the quarter inch crack in my driveway

 

[Silverhawk851]

A lot of people here have 9-5s, which is why I was asking. Of course 200k+ a year can be considered a job, but if you are hiring people to do the selling for you, then it could also be a side venture or something you do while maintaining a job/schoo

No I see what your saying, but this IS a job. Well paying one as well. Not too many other 22 year olds (yes I'm 22) make $400,000, as far as I know.

Do you do entire installations with ducting and the works or is it just for old upgrades? Are these full installs, simply a heat pump / furnace replacement, or are they portable units?

Good questions, was waiting for someone to ask that

The HVAC company has a contract with other installers and contractors to get the jobs installed. It is just the units itself and any ducting required to adapt to the already existing duct work.

We don't do it from scratch, too much headache, cost, etc.

 

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[Silverhawk851]

So how did you got all that sales experience?
oh and i was told that you are experienced with buying and selling on ebay amazon etc if so can i pm you?

Well, I just really forced it upon myself to learn how to sell. I took the first door-to-door job I could find, hit thousands upon thousands of doors, taking to 120 people a day has a way of really sharpening your skills, lol. I suggest you do the same. You'll be unstoppable.

Sure, I've been in that game a little but I'm sure there are bigger sharks on FL, shoot me a PM nonetheless I'll help with what I can.

Do you target people with prior sales experience or, or "fresh meat" that you train internally until they're ready? I'm personally thinking of going back to the drawing board on this.

Both. Now the people who are already in sales, need incentive to change. Generally, I've noticed that the experienced ones feel like they can get better opportunities with their skillset (if they know they are good). So I tell them, look, perks are better, you can advance faster, and make more money; and I have the additional benefit of being able to hang around the company owners and learn from them. They are seasoned business owners sitting on $40million each, so they can teach you a thing or two.

New guys, just make sure you create rapport, show them that anyone can do this, and give them a fun atmosphere. The best is when you hire couple people who are friends already. Your job is to develop a social atmosphere, but focused around getting sales. Make the new guys feel at home and have them make friends right away with other guys. Don't leave them to dry in the corner, then push them to the door. Take care of them, and they will take care of you.

So you get paid a $1,000 commission and the customer is only paying $30 a month????

$64.95 a month. Average Customer's net cost is usually -20/month after I eliminate useless costs.

How do you go about getting accepted by a big HVAC company such as a promoter, without any real significant experience..

Firstly, you get significant experience. Second, it's all about NEEDS. They NEED me to sell for them, or they make no money. Customers NEED this stuff, or they keep paying too much money for useless BS.

Find someone who needs to sell some shit, show them how you can do it for them without any risk on their part, and done you have an opportunity.

 

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[Silverhawk851]

how are the units "free" to the homeowner? if they are renting them? so you are just financing them to save homeowner upfront cost? but they pay a higher price/interest over the long term via rental?

by "Free" I mean their net costs go down significantly. There is still a nominal charge, but when you save 200 then pay 60, most customers say I'm still saving 140, this is free lol

1) The rules may differ in Canada but how do you classify your workers, full time, part time, independent contractors, or unreported?

All independent contractors. You don't want any liabilities, especially in a high-risk high-complaint area like Door-to-Door sales.

2) You said 6 hours a day full time, how are you selling anytime through 9-5 on weekdays? When I sold, I basically had to stick to after 5 o'clock and weekends, people were at work all day during the week.

Get out to turf by 1, knock from 2-8. Door-to-door is simply a numbers game, even if majority of people are not home during the day, you'll still find some people at home. I make the guys skip doors to ones with cars parked outside and they close deals all times during the day.

3) What did you find worked best as advertising and hiring workers? I used high school friends which was a nightmare, I guess CL would be a viable option with a lot of sorting and interviewing, but what worked best for you?

I use online CL and Kijiji to get the word out, Facebook has played a good role, luckily I know alot of hustlers who are down, if not, people see that we're making $$ and want to hop onto the movement. Again, It is a high-turnover business and that's something I had to accept, so the repeated heavy interviewing and training is inevitable.


Mike39 what kind of D2D were you doing? what kind of product was it?

 

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[karmazon]

How does one even come up with stuff like this? Reading people's ideas on this forum makes me feel like the stupidest person. How did you stumble upon this idea silverhawk?

 

[Kyle Tully]

I am still slightly confused. So if a customer stays with the company a year they will pay $780, yet you receive a $1000 dollar commission per customer? How does this make sense to a business?

Maybe the customers stay for 2 years.

Maybe they sell other products and services to these customers.

Maybe they sell/rent the list to other companies.

Maybe they have partnered with other service providers and get referral commissions.

Maybe a lot of things.

 

[Silverhawk851]

I guess I underestimated the loyalty of the customers and how long they would stay with the company on average..

It's not really a customers voluntary choice. Why? Thing is, here all these rentals show up on your gas bill, even though it may be that your renting from a 3rd party. To them it's just a gas bill. That's why they don't really care.

90% of people in Ontario rent their water heating equipment anyways, so it's not a uncommon thing here.

 

[Ubermensch]

My turn to add the little value I can to people's lives!


I've recently been making decent change while I bootstrap some capital together to start up and fund my fastlane venture.

I have decided I'm going to be a big player in Real Estate and a couple other businesses, but all requires capital; bills have to be paid, and you can only grow as fast as your spending ability allows.

After doing all the whining and complaining, I realized 0 people who give a damn about my ambitions.

So I began venturing and scanning my surroundings, canvassing my network for opportunities that will pay me well.

And if you search long and hard enough, something will click.


I approached an HVAC energy company in Toronto, got a contract as a marketing company, doing residential sales for rental HVAC equipment. Door-to-Door.

I told them I can increase their sales by X amount, and it can be only straight commission. Pay me once the services are sold and installed. Luckily my company had a lot of employees leave for holidays, school, etc, which opened up a need.

I've set it up so that our service allows customers to upgrade any old furnace or AC without paying a dime out of pocket, and offset costs on their energy bills so they stay exactly the same.

Their net cost is ZERO dollars.

best part is that I get paid over $1000 for every deal I sign and have hired close to 10 guys at this point.

The average guy closes 2 deals a day, in 6 hours of knocking doors, that's 3hrs/deal. 10 guys doing 2 a day, thats 20 deals a day.

There is a however a cancellation rate, where some deals will get cancelled, say 60%.

Still 12 deals a day. I.e. $12,000.

Some days the sales are low, some days high, some days average.

Guys are making $200,000 to $800,000 a year doing this. It's not the easiest job in the world, but $250,000 beats the crap out of $40K retail jobs with the same hours

Not to mention I can talk my way into, out of, inside and over anything. And I used to think picking up girls was hard Lol


I want to note that this is tough for me to write, because of the slowlane but justified fear of "increasing competition", but hey somebody introduced me once, and maybe I can someone improve their life.

Feel free for questions.
*Please refrain from questions too direct regarding who I'm working for, I am under contract and cannot answer.

I didn't know who you are until @Thiago Machado linked me to this thread.

Great stuff.

The United States market is prime for your company's type of offering, especially in high-priced electricity states, like California.

In California, folks pay over 20 cents per kWh.

That's WAY higher than Canadian electricity prices.

In other words, they have a lot more to save.

 

[Silverhawk851]

The United States market is prime for your company's type of offering, especially in high-priced electricity states, like California.

In California, folks pay over 20 cents per kWh.

That's WAY higher than Canadian electricity prices.

In other words, they have a lot more to save

I agree, US is a HUGE market.

Especially the northern cities, close to the border where it's pretty much Canada-cold.

I've been out of this space for a while,
(in the search for better way to get customers I got turned onto paid traffic
and it's been gravy since hah)

But most of the companies are breaking into US now
and the Banks have started buying the notes

and on top of that,
Seeing how profitable it is,

I agree with @JAJT , water purifiers is the new thing.
They are doing the exact same model

Put people on contact for x years,
bill them through their gas bill
sell contract to bank/fund
pay out sales rep
pay out installation+unit cost
and cash out couple Gs immediately

Like @JAJT said,
Thing is,
this industry has gotten alot more shadier and scammier since then
I've been hearing some super shady shit where people walking in houses with these fake badges haha

Glad I learned what I did and got out,
Was a means to an end for me

Now I just do lead gen for them and get paid commission per lead sitting at home

 

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[Eskil]

Very nice. Speed+

 

[Steve37]

Hopefully i'm wrong but this reminds me of a scheme that people used to ( still? ) run around here with solar hot water heaters. They would set up a phone room as well as door to door sales operations which would sell these systems at about double to triple the normal cost to unsuspecting homeowners. They would grossly over inflate how much money the systems would save them on their electric bill and talk these people into signing up for no money out of pocket high interest rate financing while promising them that their overall monthly expenditure would be less, which it never was.

For a short while the guys doing this were making good money, but eventually the news starting running stories about their scam. Between that and litigation they quickly folded and ended up broke again. These guys added no value to anything, just exploited people who are too stupid to realize what was happening.

I'm hoping your model is very different, but the 60% cancellation rate indicates something is shady.

 

[Mike39]

Mike39 what kind of D2D were you doing? what kind of product was it?

Physical goods, sold them at the door. Cheap product, got them for $4 and sold them for $15, paid $1 to charity and $5 to the salesman (unless I was the one selling). By a stroke of luck, the product just happened to work well for my area; I would share it but it most likely wouldn't be applicable to anyone else's location and I don't want to steer anyone in the wrong direction.

Sold well, made some good cash with it (over $1,000) in less than a week. It wasn't a hard sell and the people were nice, I got quite a few rejections but the let down was really easy comparative to my prior sales experience. The best thing about it is knowing that there is always a high paying job to use at my disposal if I ever were to need it again.

 

[Harry321]

There is an upfront cost to install the stuff, then the stuff is rented on a monthly fee. There is a lifetime value for each customer that exceeds $1,000.

I'm not debating that the lifetime value will exceed $1000, it might over $3000, but when you take into consideration all of the other costs involved I still don't understand how $1000 commission is charged. I'd definitely be interested to hear from Silverhawk on how they came to this figure, whether it is an industry standard etc..

 

[Kyle Tully]

Average salesman wage? Say $23 p.h?

If I was an employee I'd quit right away if I knew my boss was getting $1,000 commission for my 3 hours of work PER sale.

That'd mean I'd earn $69 on average for every sale I made, and my boss would make $1,000.

Am I missing something lol? That's quite impressive.

Yes he his paying them $700 per sale.

 

[Harry321]

Was waiting for someone to ask this question, it was something I'd been asking myself and took me years to figure out.

How are these guys paying $1500 upfront to me and my sales team, despite the lifetime value being over $10K? Who would do that/ has that kind of a bankroll to float for so long?

After delving into the behind the scenes, what the company was doing was getting these contracts by having us sign people up, for $60/month, as rentals. The average customer stays for 20 years, that's 12 months x 20 years x 60 dollars = $14,400 Customer Lifetime Value.

What they do is take that contact, and sell it as a note for 50cents on the dollar to other private investors, VCs firms, etc, putting $7,200 in their pocket immediately.

Pay me $1500-2000 and pocket the rest.

All the people top management were driving a $150K car at minimum.

I've actually had this contact end and have pivoted the focus for my online company on more online stuff these days.
Was a great experience while it lasted.

Thanks for clearing up.. I guess I underestimated the loyalty of the customers and how long they would stay with the company on average..

 

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[jcaldwell85]

It's not really a customers voluntary choice. Why? Thing is, here all these rentals show up on your gas bill, even though it may be that your renting from a 3rd party. To them it's just a gas bill. That's why they don't really care.

90% of people in Ontario rent their water heating equipment anyways, so it's not a uncommon thing here.

Love this thread. My husband and I have secured a contract to do marketing for an energy company but we will be paid $110 per lead, regardless of if they cancel, reschedule etc. Hoping to accomplish a decent speed, we're getting everything finalized on Tuesday

 

[LimitLessJG]

That's awesome you found a target niche and acted quickly, results seem to be amazing.

+ Speed.

Question: How was it you were able to set it up where you, your employees, and the HVAC company are all profiting from this,
if the customer doesn't have to pay anything out of pocket? Is this a type of rebate deal?

 

[CommonCents]

Yeah, do tell! My lake home needs new central air/heat system, but it's in the states.

 

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[3things]

Nice! Wonder if you have any opportunity to scale or streamline this a bit by generating leads online - in theory at least, one of your sales guys phoning a [by definition, interested] lead should be able to convert sales a lot more, or at the least book appointments for the guys on the ground. On the other hand there is a cost associated with buying the traffic of course...

Just an idle thought anyway

 

[Will B. Rich]

That's awesome major congratulations! A couple questions...

Do you pay your employees an hourly wage or are they commission based too?

Are they aware of how much money a single deal brings in?

 

[InLikeFlint]

Congrats Silver!

Are you doing this full time or do you have a job/school?

 

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[1step]

60% or 40% cancellation (not sure which because of the way you worded it) seems very high, what reasons do they give to cancel. I assume its high pressure and they end up thinking its too good to be true?

 

[InLikeFlint]

I Never do anything half-assed, so full-time for me. hahah Flint you make me laugh Does this not count as a job I don't get it

A lot of people here have 9-5s, which is why I was asking. Of course 200k+ a year can be considered a job, but if you are hiring people to do the selling for you, then it could also be a side venture or something you do while maintaining a job/school.

 

[niftyg]

Great thread.

Do you do entire installations with ducting and the works or is it just for old upgrades? Are these full installs, simply a heat pump / furnace replacement, or are they portable units?

 

[CommonCents]

how are the units "free" to the homeowner? if they are renting them? so you are just financing them to save homeowner upfront cost? but they pay a higher price/interest over the long term via rental?

 

[Mike39]

I did some much smaller scale door to door stuff a couple weeks back and had some good success with it as well, got a couple questions for you:

1) The rules may differ in Canada but how do you classify your workers, full time, part time, independent contractors, or unreported?

2) You said 6 hours a day full time, how are you selling anytime through 9-5 on weekdays? When I sold, I basically had to stick to after 5 o'clock and weekends, people were at work all day during the week.

3) What did you find worked best as advertising and hiring workers? I used high school friends which was a nightmare, I guess CL would be a viable option with a lot of sorting and interviewing, but what worked best for you?

Congrats on the "bootstrapping", I use quotes because it seems like a viable business unless I am mistaken, maybe you could start covering more ground or even moving into other cities?