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Slowlane salesman, 180k/year.

Topics related to Slowlane, Scripted mainstream dogma

Reddas

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Hey everyone,

I'm 29 years old and been in sales since my early 20s.

Currently making around 180k/year, working 35-40hours a week, running my own small business where I primarily make sales for another company through cold-calling.
This set-up pretty much violates all CENTS commandents. It's hitchhiking.

Positives - I can increase my savings, I got some autonomy, work from home, and it's pretty easy money.
But overall there's extreme limitations to the business, and no huge upside you can really shoot for.

Got about 200.000$ saved up, and I got extremely low expenses at the moment.

So right now I'm thinking about how I can invest all my energy and time into a REAL business that got a solid foundation for fastlane success.

And the opportunity cost by staying with what I'm doing now for the long-term.
 
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Process

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Welcome to the forum! Being able to cold call means you likely can read people well.

You might wanna check out the rentals/real estate section. Then you can use your cash flow, reserves and people skills to buy scalable assets.

I have a lot of friends in sales who are buying their freedom that way.
 

jackBruh

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Are there any contracts in place to prevent you making an improved version of what you're selling already?
 

Kasimir

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Welcome to the forum.
Making 180k/year with cold calling is impressive.
What about starting a business with somebody who has a great business plan. You could be co-owner and responsible for marketing/sales. You split the company 50/50 and try to grow it. When it has a reasonable size you can take a step back and let the business run without you. But you probably aren't able to pay yourself a salary of 180k in the first year.

Another idea could be to buy a business. You have to invest a lot of time to find a suitable business but then you don't have to build everything up. And you can try to improve the business with your sales knowledge and then hire people and then take a step back.
 
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Chasta_tea

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Hey everyone,

I'm 29 years old and been in sales since my early 20s.

Currently making around 180k/year, working 35-40hours a week, running my own small business where I primarily make sales for another company through cold-calling.
This set-up pretty much violates all CENTS commandents. It's hitchhiking.

Positives - I can increase my savings, I got some autonomy, work from home, and it's pretty easy money.
But overall there's extreme limitations to the business, and no huge upside you can really shoot for.

Got about 200.000$ saved up, and I got extremely low expenses at the moment.

So right now I'm thinking about how I can invest all my energy and time into a REAL business that got a solid foundation for fastlane success.

And the opportunity cost by staying with what I'm doing now for the long-term.

Geez, I’m impressed! Making 180k via cold calling is no easy feat. You’ve got incredible initiative and amazing marketing skills which anyone could benefit from. At 29, the sky’s the limit for you. Welcome to the forum!
 

Reddas

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@Process

Thanks!

Do you know what results your friends gotten in real estate? And over how long?

@jackBruh

There is, and I can't really scale this operation due to contract limitations.
So it's not possible to leverage my skills in doing what i'm currently doing in any significant way.

If I created my own product I could start out by selling it myself, and through practice find the best method for closing deals at a high-level.

From there I could recruit and train sales-people in this highly effective method which could scale given that there were enough leads, I'm able to recruit and train people well, and there was enough fat in the product for profits.

The thing is I dont have any solid skills in creating a product - no computer programming skills, or something like that.

Listened to this podcast a while back by Naval Ravikant who talked about that the ultimate combo being able to create product and being able to sell. Which makes sense to me, so it'd be smart to find people who got the skills that I lack and who are willing to go ALL-in on a fastlane business. The interesting question is how do you find co-founders?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-TZqOsVCNM


@Kashmir

Actually the kind of thinking I've been doing, and just wrote about to JackBruh.
Partnering up with a person with skills you lack.
I havn't thought about buying an existing business before you wrote about it - something I could look into.


@Chasta_tea

Thanks.

I believe it's a learnable skills for the most part, although some people got brains that are more "wired" for selling, and other are more "wired" for computers.

There's a lot of sales books / courses out there of varying quality.
Some of it is VERY good, and will get you extraordinary results if applied.

Being on the phone everyday improving your skills + studying every day = improvement in skill
 
Last edited:

Kasimir

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@Kashmir

Actually the kind of thinking I've been doing, and just wrote about to JackBruh.
Partnering up with a person with skills you lack.
I havn't thought about buying an existing business before you wrote about it - something I could look into.

If you have some capital it's pretty easy to buy a business for example from a baby boomer. Who did a good job with the business but for example never looked into FB marketing, which could have boosted his business. If you would be passionate about doing something like this I can only recommend it.
There are a lot of threads about this topic, in my mind, the best one is this one.

And then if there is a need you can partner up with somebody when you feel the need for it.
 
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KushShah9492

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Hey everyone,

I'm 29 years old and been in sales since my early 20s.

Currently making around 180k/year, working 35-40hours a week, running my own small business where I primarily make sales for another company through cold-calling.
This set-up pretty much violates all CENTS commandents. It's hitchhiking.

Positives - I can increase my savings, I got some autonomy, work from home, and it's pretty easy money.
But overall there's extreme limitations to the business, and no huge upside you can really shoot for.

Got about 200.000$ saved up, and I got extremely low expenses at the moment.

So right now I'm thinking about how I can invest all my energy and time into a REAL business that got a solid foundation for fastlane success.

And the opportunity cost by staying with what I'm doing now for the long-term.
Wow!! 180k is a big amount. I’m just curious though, when you say you make cold calls for other companies, what is it that you actually do? Are you targeting a specific sector for sales?
 

Ronak

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Can you build out a sales team and do outsourced sales for other companies? I would think that would be your fastest path to the fastlane-- sales as a service.
 

Johnny boy

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Nice!

My best friend does sales for a large IT solutions company that works with the government and hopsitals and makes some good money.

But, it's capped, there's no control, etc.

He knows it's just a stepping stone.

He sees an opportunity to start his own government contracting company with the money he's making, since he knows about the industry and it's something that 99% of people stay well away from.

His uncle followed the whole "use your high income job to start your own company but in the same industry" formula and is worth about 30 million or so. He runs a top Actuary firm in Seattle. One of their clients is Tyson foods if that tells you anything.

I suggest you explore the idea of taking your high income job and just starting a business in the same exact industry as your current employer since you know all about the industry. You're lightyears ahead of everyone else if you're starting in something you already have experience in.
 
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Reddas

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So here's an update.

As I wrote in my intro this was "hitchiking" - and it has finally crashed.

The commision structure was suddenly changed so I'd get only 33-45% for the exact same sale as before.

The situation was bad before that change - leads I was calling had gotten significantly worse since I started - telling me they have already been cold-called by the same company several times before.

Over +30 companies have been recruited to this "job" over the past 4 years - - all of them either filed for bankrupcy, or quit. I'm the only company who been at this for over a year, and probably the person who profited the most since I was was recruited as a "One man army" - never seen before back then.

At one point I out-performed a company who had 10+ salespeople employed in an office somewhere.

There's a lot of ENERGY + TIME that can be put into something else now...

The interesting question it what is should be.
 

hellolin

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So here's an update.

As I wrote in my intro this was "hitchiking" - and it has finally crashed.

The commision structure was suddenly changed so I'd get only 33-45% for the exact same sale as before.

The situation was bad before that change - leads I was calling had gotten significantly worse since I started - telling me they have already been cold-called by the same company several times before.

Over +30 companies have been recruited to this "job" over the past 4 years - - all of them either filed for bankrupcy, or quit. I'm the only company who been at this for over a year, and probably the person who profited the most since I was was recruited as a "One man army" - never seen before back then.

At one point I out-performed a company who had 10+ salespeople employed in an office somewhere.

There's a lot of ENERGY + TIME that can be put into something else now...

The interesting question it what is should be.


So essentially what happened is, someone in the higher ups must saw your number, and your earnings, and decided to off load that to someone else, possibly because you are making too much and putting them on a pedestal. Lucky you realized you had no control, and are at least doing something about it.
 

Knugs

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So here's an update.

As I wrote in my intro this was "hitchiking" - and it has finally crashed.

The commision structure was suddenly changed so I'd get only 33-45% for the exact same sale as before.

The situation was bad before that change - leads I was calling had gotten significantly worse since I started - telling me they have already been cold-called by the same company several times before.

Over +30 companies have been recruited to this "job" over the past 4 years - - all of them either filed for bankrupcy, or quit. I'm the only company who been at this for over a year, and probably the person who profited the most since I was was recruited as a "One man army" - never seen before back then.

At one point I out-performed a company who had 10+ salespeople employed in an office somewhere.

There's a lot of ENERGY + TIME that can be put into something else now...

The interesting question it what is should be.

this is good news as you can now focus on other things. I was afraid the good pay was going to hold you back.
 
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Tiago

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You have the skill of sales. You say you don't have the skill of creating a great product.

I bet there are loads of people out there with exceptional products that just lack the sales finesse to make it a success.

Have you considered partnering with someone? Not as their salesperson with commission, but with equity in the company.
 

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