Thank you for calling Tristar products, this is Ben speaking, rep ID T32, how can I help you today? Is how I would answer the phones for 8 hours a day during my time at a call center in college. They sold products that ranged from juicers, blenders, ab equipment, Obama quarters, shavers and whatever new TV infomercial item was hot on the streets during those days. Back then I was making around $15 an hour plus commission which for a college student was about as balling as the rich kid on campus who had their daddy's silver AMX. From a learning perspective, it was my first real hands-on experience selling and I was quite good at it. Other than the fact that I traded stocks while I was there, I was in the top 3 salesmen each month during my 2-year tenure at this company. As my tenure continued my hours dropped from 36 down to 10 hours however my sales stayed the same (work smarter, not harder). While most of my competition (the other call center reps) thought more hours in the seat equaled more sales, which is a pretty standard assumption.
Given the average inbound rep was fielding 80 calls in 8 hours (I averaged about 110), if they worked for 5 days and took 400 calls in a week their odds of a sale on the off chance was greater than if they worked less (simple math). The top 3 salesmen including myself followed live stats, not assumptions, we knew how much we sold each day because we kept track of it. While everyone was fighting over the Monday to Friday sales, the 3 of us (one is now my Jeweler) cleaned up on the weekend. Saturday and Sundays we would stroll in while the 9-5’s were sleeping in and we would sell more in those 16 hours than all the other reps would do in an entire week. We knew that on Mondays, people called to complain about their lives and were the angriest with themselves but took it out on you. Tuesday same thing. Wednesday they would get nicer, and Friday was light because most would be at happy hour, and guess what? Saturday and Sunday are when they’re chilling on the couch, watching TV when our commercials would air, with the 3 amigos on the other end helping close the sale. Now back then I was selling anywhere from $10k to $20k a month worth of product while only earning 4% of that in commission. The average rep would be in the $0 to $5,000 range. I was making the boss anywhere from $120,000 to $240,000 a year in revenue and his mark up on most products were 100-300%. It was frustrating to see that I was barely being compensated for 1/20th of the work I did, however now I look back and tip my cap to the man. Sure we knew how to sell, the boss knew why we sold and that’s all that mattered.
My time at that call center was the first real experience in how a business worked, it's so simple, a business is there to provide a service or sell a product in exchange for money. However, ask 10 people what the purpose of a business is and you’ll more than likely hear 10 different ridiculous answers when the real answer is to make money. Even with 90% of the call center reps being a band of misfits with no sales skills, with a majority on the phones at all times, shit was bound to stick. All that mattered to the owner was that sales continued to come in, and they did. I know they did for one simple fact, this motherfucker never drove the same car twice to the office. Anytime he would pop in, he was in a different whip, and averaging out the daily sales that the office was pulling in, he was crushing it. Now this guy did not go from answering the phones one day to having 50 reps selling for him. It took time. Just like the business you are working on, it's a constant grind, constant improvement and that’s for good reason. You need to grow with your business, shit when we first started Trading Experts, we thought it would be impossible to get someone to pay $30 a month. A few years later, and hundreds of improvements later, we wouldn't even consider anyone joining for 5 times that amount.
Just like in the call center days, taking 100+ phone calls a day, 95% of those calls were no calls. 100 people would say no and 5 on a good day would say yes. Now for most hearing those no’s can bruise one's ego, however working there, as soon as the call ended the next one came in. You simply had to pick up and were forced to push through. Having to do that day in and day out would put me on autopilot.
Have you ever been driving and zone out then come to only to realize that you had just driven 5 miles but could not recount the last few minutes? Answering those calls back to back all day long, my intros, questions, rebuttals to objections, they were all were on autopilot. I could actively listen to their tone and their voice and almost imagine the person I was talking to. By doing this in a few seconds I could gauge right off the bat if the caller was a talker or someone with their credit card in hand. A talker was cut short to a 3-minute call while someone willing to buy would take around 10 minutes. Almost 7 years later and I still remember my numbers without having to look up and to the left (what you do when you have to think of the answer). Now if you are bootstrapping your business, then all you need to be doing other than improving your product or service is getting in the trenches and get showered with no’s. I am not going to sit here and say it's going to be a fun walk in the park as everyone you come into contact with says no, however, that's the game you are in. If everyone said yes then you wouldn't be in business because the game would have already been exploited.
Just like the call center days, on the Trading Experts end, sure we get a bunch of DM’s across our 8 IG accounts however 99.99% are not buyers, they’re talkers, and that's fine. My goal is to push them into our sales funnel and turn them into buyers. This is why you will never see us spend money on Ads. I know that on average it takes a free member around 3 months to get into the habit of reading daily, completing the lessons and showing he or she is truly as interested in the markets as they had first claimed in our DM’s. As the years have gone on, we have gone from letting anyone join, but now we intentionally add hurdles in the way of allowing them to join.
Our sales funnel begins on social media, I then funnel them into Getting Started, the Mentors then help to keep the interest up as they move onto the next programs. Then by the time they have completed 3 programs, answered 30+ lessons and have spent a few months with us, it's time to shit or get off the pot. By doing this we can focus on coming in on Saturday and Sunday to clean up versus trying to grind it out like the rest of the schmucks.
More Value Task - Now for your business, I want you to fill out the same funnel below on how you turn prospects into customers and post it in the Value chat.
If you are a small business where you are the owner, the janitor, the accountant, and the salesman, that's fine, you need to master these 4 steps before you can teach anyone how to do it. Then from there outsource the part you are the worst at and focus on the part you are the most proficient at.