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How I made $185,000.00 in a week.

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

Ubermensch

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Man, to be honest before this post I did think you were at least partially full of sh*t.

But I get it now... You are just super motivated and confident that I mistook that as ill-informed arrogance.

Also the 50th law video, that is some powerful stuff, going to listen to that on a daily basis.

And don't get a Bugatti, they are very ugly! How about a nice matt black 458? ;)

View attachment 7909

The Ferrari is nice. I want more than one, and I'll park them next to my Bugatti, Lambos and other quarter million dollar cars.


Glad you liked the book. Check it out in full there.
 

S&P

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Lot of haters all over Ubermensch.

It comes with the territory.

Once again, thank you man for posting all this value.

Means the world to me. You got me started. Seriously.

My life is so different then when it was 6 months ago... I don't recognize the winner in front of me.

RI$E

"Reality is my drug. The more I have of it, the more power I get and the higher I feel"

- 50 Cent
 

Ubermensch

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I have found friends, comrades and even some guys I call "brother" through this site. We all have our battles, we all have our own war. Yet, what we have in common, is the fact that we rise. No matter what, we rise. No matter what a hater says, we rise. Even if our loved ones don't understand our choices or our ambition, we rise. Even when the fight seems unwinnable, we rise. Even when it seems we have reached an insurmountable plateau, we rise.

We rise, even when - especially when - we feel that others want to hold us down and keep us back from achieving our goals. In the morning, we rise to make ourselves stronger, faster and better. Making our phone calls, we rise. Hustling hard, we rise. Grinding for that paper, we rise. In the gym, on the last set of bench, squat or dead lift, we rise.

We rise, no matter what. We rise, even though most people don't understand why we do. We rise, even though some may mock or make fun of our dreams and goals. We rise, even though there is often no one there with us to rise with us. Yet, even when we rise alone, we do so knowing that one of our brothers from another mother - a brother who lives in another state, or maybe even another country - is fighting to rise.

We rise, and we draw upon every fragment of inspiration left behind by the men and women of history who rose before us, who showed us that The Rise is possible. We study Nietzsche, to rise. We read of the conquests of King Alexander, Spartacus, Hannibal and Genghis Kahn, so that we may learn from the masters of the rise. We see Michael Jordan or Michael Phelps, and we see the heights that are possible, for this thing we call the rise.

We rise to go to the gym. We rise to eat right. We rise to hustle.

No matter how much our haters want us to turn down the volume, we're going to blast our greatness so loud that it rattles the gates of hell and echoes throughout heaven.

To the rise, my brothers.

Cheers.

 
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Ubermensch

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This post is an answer to some questions that I keep getting regarding the art of closing B2B deals, and dealing with suppliers.

I started brokering energy in 2009, and began selling electricity in the Ohio market, in 2010.

When a state deregulates electricity, this gets rid of the monopoly that utilities typically have on the market. Both residential (B2C) and commercial (B2B) customers become fair game for any private supplier, or any other competing utility. This often means that utilities will fight each other for customers. (1)

An energy deregulation business follows the commandment of need. Every home uses energy. Every commercial business – manufacturing plants, industrial warehouses and flex spaces, office towers and office buildings and retail facilities - pays an energy bill.

“On average, a U.S. office building spends nearly 29 percent of its operating expenses on utilities, and the majority of this expenditure goes toward electricity and natural gas. For the average office building, energy costs can exceed $30,000 per year. Therefore, measures for saving energy can significantly assist office buildings in improving their bottom line.”

Office buildings in the U.S. use an average of 17.3 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity and 31.8 cubic feet of natural gas per square foot (ft) annually. (Data are calculated using a 2003 U.S. Energy Information Administration survey of commercial buildings.) Using average commercial energy prices of $0.10 per kWh and $0.98 per hundred cubic feet, the average cost of power per ft for office buildings is approximately $1.73 for electricity and $0.31 for natural gas. For the average office building in the U.S. (approximately 15,000 ft), that translates into $30,600 spent on energy per year. For a customized benchmark rating of your facility, use the Energy Star National Energy Performance Rating system via Portfolio Manager software. Overall, lighting, cooling, and ventilation are responsible for more than 60 percent of electricity use by office buildings, and heating dominates natural gas consumption. As a result, these are the best areas to target for energy savings.” (3)

QUESTION: "How do you go about setting up contracts and convincing suppliers that they actually need you ? If I connect a buyer with a seller why should the seller pay me a residual margin if they could just cut me out after they have met?"

It's like Jordan Belfort says in his Straight Line training program. First, you have to convince yourself that you're the shit. If you believe that – in your bones – then it will come across in the way you speak. Think about it from the supplier's perspective. Is it a Fortune 500 company, or is it a start-up? Either way, you will have something called a channel manager. These types are all over Linkedin (4, 5, 6).

Really, though. The answer to this question should sound familiar: “Provide value. Solve a problem.”

What the f*ck can you do for an energy channel manager? Their job is to hit a sales goal. If they miss it, they might get fired. If they hit it – or pass it – they get bonuses. They can only take on so many channel managers. Why should they work with you? Can you bring them commercial customers? Do you have experience running a door-to-door team? Have you ran an energy brokerage before? If not, a good solution would be to hook up with an established brokerage seeking growth, strike an unusually lucrative deal with them, and then hire a team underneath you. They'll all be able to leverage the deal you negotiated.

How does payment processing work. I am looking at a goverment contract right now to supply fire alarms for $300,000. If I find a supplier who can deliver all the goods for 200k leaving me 100k in profit how does the deal go through if I don't have enough money to pay the supplier because governments don't pay upfront ?

I have been paid six-figure fees in both commercial energy and selling commercial energy efficiency. The main difference between the former and the latter is the expediency in which you are paid.

Here is a monthly breakdown of monthly fees received – entirely on autopilot – for brokering a commercial energy deal.

Month 1: Number of Payments: 1 (0 of which are $0 payments)
Number of Remittance Lines:1
Total amount deposited :USD 8,828.30


Month 2: Number of Payments: 1 (0 of which are $0 payments)
Number of Remittance Lines:1
Total amount deposited :USD 4,780.33


Month 3: Number of Payments: 1 (0 of which are $0 payments)
Number of Remittance Lines:1
Total amount deposited :USD 9,334.14

For this particular client, the payments came in for 36 months.

Payment processing depends on the type of business you're in. When I only sold commercial energy contracts, suppliers paid me mostly in residuals. An example was First Energy Solutions, before they went under, which helped you get set up in the following ways:

From accounts payable (this is how they set you up after you sign a brokerage areement and bring in your first client:

“I'd like to follow-up with our request to you and your company to enroll in the ACH process via JPMorgan Order-to-Pay (Xign). Your enrollment would allow both your company and FirstEnergy to take full advantage of the electronic payment process available to you.

Please review and advise.

Thanks very much.

(See attached file: FE EIPP Supplier Enrollment Letter Payment Only
WPY.doc)”

Getting paid on energy efficiency deals is much faster. Also, better, because no one in that industry pays quickly: https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/progress-pics-proof-and-money-porn.61228/

The key to that business, unlike the fire alarm example, is that you can sell mega B2B deals, without actually having to hold product inventory or have any capital upfront. If you have a solid partner, they have the logistics, warehousing - basically, all of the resources necessary to manufacture and provide product to the end user. All you have to do is sell.

1) (http://www.crainscleveland.com/arti...tion-takes-effect-firstenergy-aep-drop-gloves)


2) http://www.imt.org/uploads/resources/files/TelergyCaseStudy.pdf


3) http://www.energyright.com/business/pdf/Office_Buildings_ESCD.pdf


4) https://www.linkedin.com/pub/chris-porath/4/998/93


5) https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankpresco


6) https://www.linkedin.com/pub/victoria-tori-chadwick/3/66a/424
 
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BigBrianC

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First, pretty great thread. Second, sorry if this is a stupid question, but you basically are like a real estate agent? You convince people (i assume the property owners while building is happening/before) to buy from a supplier, who gives you comission?
 
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Ubermensch

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First, pretty great thread. Second, sorry if this is a stupid question, but you basically are like a real estate agent? You convince people (i assume the property owners while building is happening/before) to buy from a supplier, who gives you comission?

Good analogy.

There are a lot of similarities between the two industries. In both industries, you need a license to sell.

All 50 states have deregulated real estate markets, for both commercial and residential (I'm talking United States here). There are around dozen and a half states deregulated for electricity, and 20+ for gas.

In residential real estate, you can make decent money off of one deal. $1,000 - $100,000+, depending on the size of the home. The sales cycle is also typically long - days, weeks, or even months. With residential energy deals, you make money in volume - $20 - $60+ per deal, depending on the market, and depending whether or not you can sell duel fuel (natural gas and electricity at the same time). In both residential real estate and residential energy, you have the ability to raise a team underneath you, and make overrides on their commissions.

In commercial real estate, you can make a lot of money, if you have the right clients. Entering that game requires either connections or mad cold-calling. The same is true for energy. If you have the right clients, you can essentially golf, "party" and travel for most of your days. All you have to do is nurture your six-figure clients properly (by golfing and traveling with them... haha), and they will continue to buy from you (clients always need new leases or have to sell a property, and they will always need to buy energy). I say "party," and I really mean networking and taking clients out. That said, some clients are more wild than others...

For both commercial real estate and energy, selling is all about the numbers. Net Operating Income (NOI), property values, and return on investment dominate the conversation. If you do not know this language, and you want to enter this game, learn to speak it - or you will be smoked out, quick. It's complicated; it is simple, so I wouldn't short-cut this step.

This is true for an energy broker, because if he can demonstrate kW and kWh savings, then he is impacting savings on the most important expense for a commercial real estate owner. Demonstrating excellence in this way can give you access to, literally, the largest clients on the planet. The clients that manufacture all of things that we use on a daily basis. The clients with 1,000,000 - 100,000,000+ square foot portfolios. The clients that bring you six-figure paydays.

Learning both games is slow, and I know this mostly from the commercial energy broker side. However, with time - 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, 40,000+ hours - you'll build up Mastery, just as with anything else. In both cases, once you're a Master, you can teach people how to do what you do.
 

Ubermensch

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Answering your question on licensing...

The overall energy market is controlled by the FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission). This organization overseas both the wholesale and the retail electricity markets. The wholesale marketplace is where names you might know - Constellation Energy, Exelon (recently purchased Constellation), Direct Energy - purchase on the wholesale market, and then turn around and resell this energy to retail customers. What many commercial customers don't know is that they can directly access the wholesale market themselves. They just have to have significant load size.

99.99% of the marketplace buys from a retail electricity supplier. To own a supply company, you need significant cash, credit and expertise. It's a big boy game, where Fortune 1000 companies - and incumbent utilities - eat up most of the customer bases. If you are just one guy, and you want to sell energy, you need to become a broker.

The best way to become an energy broker Day 1 - tomorrow, if you wanted to - is to contact a broker willing to fast track your broker status. In other words, convince them you can sell, and they'll start paying you like a broker from Day 1. 30%, 40%, 50%+ commissions. Commissions are paid in mils ($0.001), multiplied by the total usage of your customer, in terms of kWh (electricity) or decatherms (nat gas).

Retail energy brokers, by definition, broker on behalf of retail energy suppliers. These suppliers, in turn, buy electricity on the wholesale market.

Without fast tracking your broker status, you'll have to work for another brokerage, making 5% and a salary... while you make your company a ton of money.

It's all about getting paid fast, getting paid now, and exploding your income. It's a simple fact that selling energy is a viable way to make money. If you can squeeze out all of the fat of the deal on your side, and then have additional products and services behind you to back it up, then you turn that client (already an annuity) into a repeat customer, many times over.

If you want self-employed status, sign an agent agreement with a brokerage willing to give you a shot. If they don't have something in place to get you paid within 5 - 7 business days of you starting.

On your first day, you should be armed to make money.
 
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DClaiborne

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Great thread. As someone who seems to have always been fueled by the negative around him, reading how you spin that into success definitely inspires me to keep going in all aspects of life.

You mentioned being the broker has come and gone in terms of maximizing success with minimal competition (like when you started back in 2010.

Most of the people are still asking how to get started in the thread, but I'm wondering what things do you have your eyes on next or seem to spark your interest like energy did 5-6 years ago.
 
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Ubermensch

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Great thread. As someone who seems to have always been fueled by the negative around him, reading how you spin that into success definitely inspires me to keep going in all aspects of life.

Yea, brother.

You mentioned being the broker has come and gone in terms of maximizing success with minimal competition (like when you started back in 2010.

What made brokering energy so sweet was the sales process. There is no money out of pocket to the customer; they just sign a contract and get their price from the supplier.

The supplier - or the broker - pays you the fee, which is invisible to the customer. From the customer's perspective, nothing changes.

Most of the people are still asking how to get started in the thread, but I'm wondering what things do you have your eyes on next or seem to spark your interest like energy did 5-6 years ago.

I had a good conversation with a fast lane member earlier today, an online marketer. I am actually looking to partner with people knowledgeable and experienced with affiliate marketing and online marketing.

In the conversation with the member, he discussed our similarities and our differences.

Similarly, we both like "hot" opportunities in "fresh" markets. A "hot" opportunity is one that is brand new, brought into existence by force maejore An obvious example is electricity, where the state or federal government pass a law that creates market opportunity. Energy deregulation destroys the utility's monopoly on electricity supply, thus creating opportunity for private suppliers, like Constellation Energy, Direct Energy, AEP Energy, etc.
The brokers that broker energy broker for these and a multitude of other suppliers.

There are tons of brokers out there these days. You have to be real smart and experienced to close a big user these days.


but I'm wondering what things do you have your eyes on next or seem

When it comes to business to business sales, I think the focus has to be on cost savings and profit enhancement.

Funny you ask this question.

A few days ago, I launched a campaign with some of partners for a new service.

Typically, in the past, we've pursued larger customers and larger transactions. However, the service I have now is ultra-simple for the customer.

The customer goes to the website, and clicks on the "enroll" page.

On the "enroll" page, they click on a list of suppliers that offer unique, discounted pricing through our site. Savings range from 10% - 65% for the customer. They pay no fee to enroll (just as with energy).

But the sale is so much sweeter than energy. All they have to do is click that they want savings from, for example - Office Max - and they will be contacted by an Office Max account manager that will handle the rest.

I signed one of my large clients up today. I talked to the secretary, guided her through the process on the phone, and now she will purchase ink cartridges, paper, pens, pencils, etc at a discounted price for a property management and an attorney's office.

Easiest close of my life. Other than energy efficiency (which entails long sales cycles, and immense paydays), nothing has sparked my interest like this. What excites me about it is the speed and ease of the sales cycle, all the way to the close. Lol. There is no close. Jordan Belfort could give away 1,000 of these. Grant Cardone could give away 1002. It's a discount code that gives them cheaper office products. Who doesn't want a discount?

So, as you can see, the business model lends itself both to the traditional, old-school manner of business development (i.e. cold calling, prospecting, using relationships, networking, employing strategic partners as sales agents, closing over the phone or in person, etc) yields results, yet it is also highly ripe for a new-school affiliate marketing or online marketing approach. The right affiliate partner, network of affiliate partners, publishers, etc... I think they could blow this up. It's just a hunch, though.

It's all about cost-savings solutions that require no money out of pocket, either because of the process inherent to the solution, or because financing is established and in place for equipment upgrades.

CFO magazine recently published an essay stating that every dollar of cost savings is equivalent to $5 - $10 in revenue for a company.
 

axiom

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Ubermensch

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So you're out the business?

Getting back in HARD now.

Were entry barriers so low that you no longer feel it's a worthy endeavor?

The barrier of entry to get into the business - in general are quite low.

However, knowing where and how to sell accounts is an art.

I have a deal right now where I'm getting accelerated commissions.

So, instead of getting paid $600 a month for 12 months for a $5,000 contract, I get $5,000 upfront.

I'm setting up other brokers with the same agreement.

Great tie-in to the conversation about PACE.

With such a great written copy title I clicked on this thread.

And then I read every post Ubermensch ever blessed us with on this site.

This stuff is gold. I don't understand why people knock on you for being driven by hate and other negative emotions.

If I learnt one thing about emotions is that all negative states stem from FEAR and all positive states stem from LOVE

It strikes me that Ubermensch FEARED being unsuccessful. He hated being regular. He used that energy to become a total F*cking badass in my book. This is inspiring stuff. It's not always pretty. It's not always clean. It's not always FEEL GOOD.

Ubermensch you're a F*cking warrior man and you drove motivation deep into my soul with your contributions on this website. Thank you man.

Lol, you got me, brother.

The fear of normality has always been a huge driver.
 

Eunice

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If you've read MJ's book, you know the kind of money I was making around a year before I started the biz. I was technically self-employed, contracted as an investment banker by a middle-market real estate developer seeking $1M - $10M equity investments from top-tier private equity funds. They were my largest client (but not my only one), paying me $5,000 per month. Then the recession hit.

I wasn't rolling in the dough, certainly not by Fastlane terms, but I had enough bread (crumbs) to live off of while I got started. Off the top of my head, let me think about the costs:

I had to set up the legal entity that would actually sign contracts with the electricity/natural gas suppliers. I did that through LegalZoom, and it cost me a few hundred bucks. I had a website built by a friend of a friend for $600. In retrospect, though, I didn't really need the site. To keep costs low, I did my own legal work. Without consulting an attorney, I personally reviewed the agreements between my legal entity and the suppliers.

Then there was the licensing. Every state has its own commission that oversees brokers, and you (technically) have to be licensed to do business in these states. Some have more stringent rules than others. Getting licensed was easy. Compared to old industries like commercial real estate and commercial insurance, there are almost no federal rules and surprisingly little red tape (the kind of business I prefer). That said, there is a lot of legal language required in the filing process, and most brokerages pay an attorney $2,000 - $5,000 to draft and file said papers. Again, I did my own legal work, drafting and filing the documents myself.

Aside from my mobile phone, which cost me around $100 per month for unlimited minutes, I can't think of any other costs I incurred (other than travel). So, I'd say my total costs to start the biz were under $1,000.



In the energy biz, suppliers pay you in different ways. All payments are based on the annual usage of the client.

Example: Suppose you have a nursing home client with 20 locations, and the aggregate usage is 20,000,000 kWh. Your job as a broker would be to get the client to sign a contract with supplier ABC. Once the agreement is signed, and the client begins using electricity from the new supply source, the supplier either pays you one lump sum, or recurring payments over the life of the contract. I received payments both ways.




Honestly, the only knowledge I began with was that the recession happened, companies were low on revenue, electricity prices were at a ten-year low and - perhaps most importantly - signing an electricity contract requires no upfront costs on the part of the client. No upfront retainer or hourly stipends from the broker. The client only paid once they started saving money.

When I started the electricity biz, I could barely spell kWh. I knew nothing about generation, and who the major players were. It was a process of trial-and-error to figure out which supplier was the best. This took me a year. Once I found the right supplier, everything clicked. Knowing what I know now, that process could have been cut down by a lot.

As far as contacts, every single client I got - except for my first one, which made me around $500 - I got through cold-calling. No connections whatsoever. Just dialing for dollars Wolf of Wall Street style.

What I should emphasize the most is that the quality of your call list means a lot. Actually, that's a cost I forgot to mention, but these costs do not have to be significant. I used a manufacturing and industrial list that came on a CD, and it only cost me a few hundred bucks.

Regardless of your business, I would check out LinkedIn's business development tools. Some of Linkedin's stuff is the best kept secret. At one point, they had a service that literally allowed you to view full profiles for every single person on LinkedIn... all 100 million. At one point, you could even view all of the persons's connections, and you had the ability to send private messages to these people. Pretty crazy prospecting tool if used correctly. But it's expensive, and they've since scaled back the comprehensiveness of the tool, making it much less cool in my opinion.

That said, the holy grail of call lists is one that gives you direct access to the decision makers. The best case scenario is having a corporate decision maker's cell phone number and well-researched, comprehensive information on said contact's professional and even personal life. Over the years, I've somewhat perfected the way to compile such lists using online databases.



I no longer run my own brokerage, because I think there are WAY too many brokers and suppliers in the game now. Margins have shrunk and there are so many amateurs that it gives the real professionals a bad name. However, if something about the energy business sincerely sparks your interest, I can point you in the right direction if you like. Just PM me if you're interested.

ubermenschforever.blogspot.com
 
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BrianPM

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"I have a deal right now where I'm getting accelerated commissions.

So, instead of getting paid $600 a month for 12 months for a $5,000 contract, I get $5,000 upfront."


Is there a derived benefit taking all up front vs. residuals to you? I would assume tax purposes could make that not attractive.

Are you now working for a smaller brokerage offering more aggressive commissions?
 

AllenCrawley

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"I have a deal right now where I'm getting accelerated commissions.

So, instead of getting paid $600 a month for 12 months for a $5,000 contract, I get $5,000 upfront."


Is there a derived benefit taking all up front vs. residuals to you? I would assume tax purposes could make that not attractive.

Are you now working for a smaller brokerage offering more aggressive commissions?
Uber has been banned so don't expect a response to your inquiry. :oops::smuggy:;)
 

amp0193

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BrianPM

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Am not surprised.

I thought it had been quiet around here lately.
Appreciate it and I thought so when I tried to PM him.

Anyone else able to shed any light on these or maybe even standard commission plans to open your own brokerage?
 

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