Just Do It

I Don’t Sell You! I Help You!

Mitch Ribak

Introduction

Well here I am. Forty-seven years old and finally realizing that I understand what it’s all about. In the next 50 pages or so I am going to explain to you my philosophies on many different aspects of life in the business world. Most of this manual will relate to starting a business or to sales. However, I believe that most of what I have to say relates to everyday life. It’s all about how I choose to live my life and how I teach my children, my staff and basically anyone else that will listen to me. Lately I have been doing motivational speeches and spreading my message.

I have worked for 25 years and owned fourteen companies. Throughout that time period I have made a lot of money and I have lost a lot of money. Sometimes I have questioned why I don’t just get a job like most people. I know I can earn a better than average income working for a company. Most people would believe that would be a great move but it’s something I just can’t do. My need to succeed keeps me driven at all times. Success has nothing to do with money; it has to do with accomplishing what I set out to do. With luck, accomplishing my goals usually means I earn a good living. I have never worried too much about money since I always figured money would come with accomplishment… and it does.

I have made so many mistakes that have cost me probably millions of dollars. I never looked at those mistakes though, but as learning experiences that have educated me to this level. Ok, it did take me a little time to get over the failures before I appreciated their education benefit. In the end though, I learned as much from my two failures as I did from my successes. As you read through this manual, remember that it comes from my heart and soul. It is written with 25 years of hard work with virtually no education, except what I learned on my own. You have the power in you to succeed at whatever you desire. Just do it!

I hope you enjoy what you are about to read. I hope you learn as much as you can. I have only touched on the basics in this manual. If you have questions or need help, don’t hesitate to contact me and I will be glad to help!

Selling Philosophy

My sales career started when I was very young. I was pretty much born with the ability to persuade—it’s my best trait. My first “business,” if you want to call it a business, was convincing kids in my neighborhood to ride on my dog’s back. I charged 10 cents for a ride and had no problem getting many takers. At 6 years old, I realized that making money was fun. This business probably lasted a couple of weeks at best and I really don’t know if it was two cents or 10 cents, but it was the beginning of it all.

I never received any formal sales training. I did go to a seminar when I was in my early 20’s, but I wasn’t impressed. As I sat through several hours of a man trying to sell me his training material, I realized that this was not the salesperson I wanted to be. I knew that there must be a better way not only to sell something, but to make people really happy about their purchases. In the next few paragraphs, I will share with you my philosophy in becoming a top salesperson.

Recently, as I was going through some old papers, I found a letter with my high school diploma that was the catalyst for changing my entire life. The letter was simple and it contained something that I have taught hundreds and hundreds of people over the years. The letter talked about using the mirror to analyze oneself. The truth of the matter is, you can’t lie to yourself if you are looking deep into your own eyes in a mirror. I think you can use any mirror, but I always use the bathroom mirror. It’s easy to rationalize, but as soon as you look into your eyes, the truth comes out. Looking in the mirror has shaped who I am as a salesman and more importantly, who I am as a person. I am always honest because I don’t want to face my own wrath when I look in the mirror. If I do anything wrong, believe me, I am going to be scolded by myself!

I find selling very easy. I have sold so many things in my life, from corporate paintball programs to flowers in convenience stores. I have sold dating service memberships, lawn care, long distance, Internet programs, marketing ideas, and houses. There is only one thing in common with all these sales positions. I have always been number 1. I really don’t know what it’s like to be number 2. I have heard about it, but have no desire to be there! My last and current business is in Real Estate. I remember the first day I was hired by my broker. I told her that I worked a minimum of 60 hours a week and would be number one in her company by the end of my second year. It was a little disturbing when she and another Realtor with many years experience snickered at my comment. They had never seen the power of my sales technique. Of course, now that I have been in this business for a while, I can understand their doubt. Most people don’t want to work hard to accomplish their goals. They just coast along being mediocre.

One of my favorite sayings, which I took from the book Good to Great by Jim Collins, is “Good is the evil of Great.” Most people are very happy being mediocre and will never accomplish their full potential because they feel they are good. I always strive to be great. I have a hard time understanding why some people never strive to become more. They are comfortable staying in their comfort zone and never being the best at what they do. Of course, when you find people that want to work hard to be the best, not just talk about it, those are your best employees or sales reps. These are the people that also want to be number one. My broker back then is now my partner in my real estate company! It just goes to show you that people can change their view of things.

So here are a few glimpses of my career…ok I’m patting myself on my back, but I worked hard to be able to brag. I’m going to quickly take you through my working career. I’m not going to hit on every company or job I had, but just enough so you can get an understanding of my work life.

My first company was a modular home company. I wasn’t sure what I was doing but I knew that if I wanted to make money, I would have to sell these uncommon at the time, homes. I placed an ad in the paper and the appointments started pouring in. It was crazy. Within a week I had sold two homes, which earned me $10,000 in commissions. It was pretty cool, but I really didn’t like it so I stopped. In hindsight, considering what I do now for a living, I should have stuck with Real Estate, since I eventually ended up back here. That was my first venture into sales. I had no training and no marketing experience. I just did what made sense and told the truth. I have never lied or extended the truth to make a sale. This is my first and probably most important tip for success. Never jeopardize your integrity for a buck. As you will see, I have made good money and lost just a little more, but I always did it honestly.

That business was short lived, mainly because of my very short attention span. I really enjoyed meeting with the couples and pitching my homes. That part of the business was very fun. I think I knew then that I was destined to be my own boss and to always be involved in sales. Of course, if you own your own company, you are always in sales.

My next business was probably my most fun. In the early 1980’s, with one of my best friends, we started Survival South. Survival South was a paintball business. We would get up to 150 people a day running around over 60 acres shooting paintballs at each other while playing capture the flag This business kept me in great physical shape! Not only did I get to spend my entire weekend playing Paintball, I spent most of my week playing tennis with my partner. This business gave me many of the tools I currently use. We were usually sold out by the end of March for the entire year. Realizing that being sold out capped our earnings, I came up with the idea of using Paintball as a stress reduction course for corporations. It was an immediate success. I didn’t realize at the time that I was creating my sales technique. I was becoming who I am today. I would walk into major corporations dressed in my camouflage uniform and talk with Presidents and CEO’s, explaining to them the benefits of having their sales staff play Paintball against their management staffs or having their management play against their laborers. I was too inexperienced to know how difficult this was, so I just walked in and did it. I believed in what I was talking about. I knew how much fun Paintball was, and that it didn’t matter if you were a factory worker or a CEO when you were on the field. Everyone was equal. The results were amazing. The more corporations I brought on, the more confidence I gained. This is another major lesson #2. You have to believe in what you are selling and you must have the confidence in your knowledge of what you are selling. You have to believe!

Survival South was a success. If it weren’t for personal issues between my partner and me, I would most likely be living in Massachusetts and opening fields around the country. It wasn’t meant to be. It was a hard lesson about partnerships and trust. My partner could not tell the truth. I could not lie. We were doomed as a partnership from the beginning. Unfortunately for my partner, this will most likely follow him around for his entire life. The truth was told when we split the company. I reopened and sold my company. He tried to become a non-profit, which was ridiculous, and never sold his business. Being honest paid off. If nothing else, I learned that being honest and having fun were great ingredients to success.

After I sold my Paintball business, I bought a flower business. This was an interesting business. If you have ever walked into a convenience store and seen the bucket of roses and mixed flowers, then you know what I did for a living. The business was quite simple. I would place flowers on consignment in different locations and hope they sold. I owned Boston, Rhode Island and Connecticut. The potential for this business was incredible. However, it wasn’t very exciting. I hired someone to deliver the flowers and I bought a restaurant--Big Mistake!

I knew nothing about the restaurant business and was not used to working 130 hours per week. Within a year I had lost everything. The business was costing me $1500 a week, my dad was very sick, and I ended up in the hospital. I sold the flower business to keep the restaurant going…another major mistake. So, less than two years after selling my paintball business, I was completely broke. I lost my house, my condo, my cars…everything. Four months later my dad died. The universe works in mysterious ways--I got to spend the last few months of my dad’s life with him. I wouldn’t change that for anything. I learned more about my dad in that short time than I had learned my entire life.

It was the early 90’s, I had no money, no job and I was devastated over my dad’s death. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do the rest of my life. I had two great kids to support. This was the first time in my life that I had regretted not getting my college degree. Getting a job was very difficult. I took a sales job selling MCI long distance when it first came out. It was MCI versus AT&T. I worked with 70 sales people during different shifts. It was the first time I had ever competed with others for sales. An average shift would be 4 or 5 sales people working at the county and state fairs, as well as other events. Our job was simple: give away a cooler or some other promotional product and get people to switch from AT&T to MCI. I really believed in MCI and their discounted services. Again, you have to believe. Within a couple of days I was selling a ton of switches. I would average around 60-70 switches per shift (4 hours) compared to everyone else selling an average of 10 - 15. The company approached me about training the other reps in my techniques. However, they didn’t want to pay me for my services. At that time, there was a sales manager’s job available, but the person who received that job was a friend of the current boss. I didn’t have a chance. This solidified my desire to work for myself. I was never into the games played in the corporate world. They still pursued me to train other reps but I wasn’t going to do this for free. However, I did make a few friends during that time period and decided to train them. Within a week their sales shot up to my sales level. Funny thing was that we brought on so much business that they felt they were paying out too much in commissions. They closed the program. Unfortunately, I was making a good amount of money and really liked what I was doing. One of the lessons I learned was when you own your own business; you are not at the mercy of your boss letting you go or their company shutting down. I also realized at this point that I had a very powerful sales presence. A few things remained constant with my sales: I was always honest; I tried to help my customers; and I always believed. I never did anything to jeopardize my integrity…. and it worked!

The next couple of years were difficult for my family. We scraped by through a series of small business ideas. Some worked, and some didn’t. One of my favorite short-lived businesses was selling Bungy Balls. Bungy Balls were basically balloon yo-yos. I had found them at one of the fairs I had worked with MCI and thought they were very cool. I had never seen them before. One of my MCI friends, Paula, and I decided that this would be a great product to sell at Christmas time. Paula and I went on a search to find a location. Paula did a great job in finding us a corner of another company’s kiosk to sell our Bungy Balls. We ended up being in 12 malls for the last two weeks before Christmas. We had two shifts of people making product for us along with another 24 people working in the malls selling them. At the end of two weeks, we had sold 17,000 Bungy Balls and netted around $12,000 in our pockets. Not to bad for a quick throw-together business. There were still more businesses and more sales experience, but it would take me an entire book to write about all that fun.

Selling to me is very simple. I have read so many sales books and when it really comes down to it, my techniques seem to work better than anything I have read. First, I believe that a great salesperson never sells anything. I’m sure a few of you just said, “What?” The reality is that if you truly believe in your product, and you have an honest, sincere desire to help people achieve their goals, then the product will sell itself. If you help enough people, you will get paid. Let’s look at one of my other businesses to help understand this concept. My first steady employment after losing my restaurant was working at a Dating Service. I quickly realized the value of this business. Not only for the amount of money it can generate, but also the wonders it did for so many single people. Within a short period of time I became the Sales Manager of the company, and then the Director and Vice President. What I really want to discuss though, is the sales approach. Dating businesses have a very high-pressure sales approach. The closing average for this national dating service was 46%. When I first took over as Sales Manager, I figured I should sell a few memberships to see what was involved with the sale. I had no training; I just went in and did my thing. As with all my sales experience in the past, I found it a very easy sale. It was simple--the people were single, we had a way for them to stop being single, and it was a classy great service. How could they not want to buy a $2,000 membership? My closing percentage quickly shot up to 87%. That was unheard of in this business. As the manager, my job was to increase sales. So how could I change the average of 46% and make it higher? The answer was quite easy to figure out. I just had to fire the hard-core, high pressure sales staff and hire people that really cared about what happened to our customers. I then hired people with social service backgrounds and no sales experience. These new salespeople were very caring, loving people. Our sales average shot up to 60% in no time. So what happened here? We were honest, sincere, caring and had a true desire to help our customers. These are all the ingredients to making a sale.

Many sales experts will disagree with me, and tell you that you must have all the sales techniques that have been taught for many years. I just don’t buy it. You can use this close and that close and this question and that question, but in the end, people buy because they feel good about what they are buying. Yes, you can make a quick sale here and there, but the lifeblood of a sales career will be lost. You will not receive any referrals. I want happy customers because happy customers tell their friends to call me. Referrals are the true measuring stick of how successful you are as a salesperson.

In short, what I have tried to tell you through all my rambling over the past several pages is that helping people while being honest and working hard will always prove successful. Never go for the quick sale. Build a relationship that will last a lifetime and you will have a lifetime of rewards.

Just Do It!

I think there is only one thing in life that I fear. That fear is lying on my deathbed and saying, “I should have.” That scares the heck out of me. We only have one life to live and you need to pack as much as you can into such a short amount of time. After all, we don’t know how much time we have. Some of us will live very long lives, while many more of us will die before of our time. I watched my mother and father die before they were 60. I watched one of my best friends’ dad die at the age of 55. He had been retired for a year when he found out he had cancer. I have two uncles that died at the age of 59, the same age as my mother when she died. There are a few in my family who do have a little longevity, so with a little luck I will live a long and fun life. However, I’m not going to spend my life wishing I had done something—I’m going to do it.

I have been an entrepreneur for over 25 years now. There have been some great moments. There have been times when I had a lot of money and could buy or do anything I wanted. There have been many other times when I was broke and wasn’t sure how I was going to pay my bills. I believe my best asset is the fact that I have the power to Just Do It. If I had listened to everyone my entire life, I would probably have finished college and found that job that would guarantee security for me and my family. Sounds like the American Dream doesn’t it? But I knew then what I still know today. I want to be in control of my own destiny. Even though many times I have struggled, I have never failed. Certainly I have lost a lot of money and spent many sleepless nights trying to save a business or two. But I wasn’t at the mercy of a company going out of business or having a lay off. I didn’t have to deal with office politics. I didn’t have a boss telling me what to do, especially when I knew more than he knew. I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted.

The struggles I had were my greatest learning adventures. They taught me and gave me great tools to succeed. They taught me about perseverance and hard work. They taught me about getting back on the horse because no matter how many times you fall, you can always get up again.

Throughout my life, I have heard so many people tell me they are going to do this or they are going to do that. They are going to start a business or they have this great idea they want to sell. I also hear business owners tell me that they want to grow their businesses and want advice on how to do just that. I would take a guess that maybe 1% of the people in the world, and that is probably high, actually act on their dreams and desires. What a shame. How can you be completely satisfied with yourself and your life if you haven’t tried everything you wanted? How can you look in the mirror when you know that you have so much more to offer the world, your family and yourself, and you have done nothing to achieve these dreams? Fear is the reason you don’t go after what you want. “I am too old,” or “I don’t have enough money,” and so on. I’m here today to tell you to: JUST DO IT!

To be successful in life you need to take on challenges. You need to look in that mirror and tell yourself you can do anything you want. Have you figured out yet that I like to tell stories? Here is another story of my business life that proves my point.

After working at the dating service for a few years, my desire to go back on my own gnawed at me daily. I knew that I was wanted to start a business again and I really enjoyed the dating business. Not only was I good at generating business, I really enjoyed offering people insight into their relationships or lack thereof. I helped a ton of people and it felt good. Yup, back to the old “helping people” theme. I started my own dating service in 1995, when the Internet was just starting to take off. One of the interesting parts of my dating service though was that we were one of the first companies to use database integration over the Internet. This meant that my members could do all their research from the comfort of their own homes, versus having to come into the office to look at pictures and profiles of other members. Old hat today, but at the time it was a great concept. The funny part is that I didn’t know it wasn’t something available so I kept searching until I found a software company willing to take a chance and help me develop what I needed. In the end, I took this technology and converted my dating service to an Internet-only dating service. But after a year, my dating service was not doing very well, because of a lack of funds. Early on someone broke in and stole all our computers. We never quite recovered from that day. I realized quickly that to run a successful Internet dating service I would have to raise a ton of money. After all, I was still broke from losing everything in 1990. I put together a small business plan and spreadsheet. The business plan was very simple. It told what my company was about, what my goals were and how I was going to get there. The spreadsheet gave a breakdown of income and expenses over the next 5 years. The potential was excellent.

I had never raised capital before, but I figured as long as I did it honestly and believed in my product, I would be able to do it. Within days I had lots of money coming in to fund my company. First, I went to family and friends and raised around $100,000 or so. I started out giving away 1% for $10,000 and then increased from there. By the end of my fundraising, I was giving away 1% for $100,000. It was amazing. Everywhere I went people wanted to invest. In just about three years, I raised over $3,000,000. The point of this story is that if I had listened to how hard this was going to be, I may never had tried. Just Do It!

Today is your opportunity. You have an idea or a dream you have always wanted to do. You have the power in you to make it happen. For the less secure risk takers, start your dream part-time. You don’t have to dive in full force if you are afraid. The key is that you start. If you are not sure how to start, just read and learn. Talk to business people who have taken the plunge. We are all willing to tell you our stories and to help you create your own story. I have met thousands of small, medium and large business owners and believe me; we love to help others find the holy grail of the business life. Learn from these people. Buy books and go online. Research your idea to come up with the best plan you can to put it into motion. When you get out of work, spend another hour or two a day working at your dream. If you work hard, you will be rewarded. When you put down this manual today, I want you to write down your dream. Write down your long-term goals of how you are going to obtain your dream. Write down your short-term goals, which will guide you into your long-term goals. You can’t do it if you don’t try, and if you don’t try you will never forgive yourself. JUST DO IT!

Honesty and Ethics

Much of what I talk about can be applied to many aspects of your life. To me, the most important part of life and how you are judged is through honesty and ethics. I do believe in the old adage that what comes around, goes around. I believe in Karma. I believe that if you live your life as a good person with good intentions you will have a good life. This doesn’t mean you won’t have your ups and downs, as we all do, but it means that you will bounce back. Good things happen to good people.

Honesty and ethics are the most important part of my business and personal life. I live every day and guide all my decisions by making sure that I am honest and ethical. I would never lie to get a sale. I would never do something that isn’t right to make money. There is nothing good about tainted money. OK, time for a story.

As I mentioned before, one of my first businesses, and definitely one of my favorites, was my paintball business. It was my first venture into a partnership, which I believed had many benefits. One of the biggest benefits was the fact that I got to work each day with one of my best friends. But my ex-partner, whom I will call Tom, had issues from way before we were in business. I should have known better, but I was young and not so smart! Tom worked for his mother’s business for years. He made very good money for the time and always pretended to be a good person. There were many times during our friendship when I saw him do questionable things. For instance, I remember him calling the electric company to tell them that he couldn’t pay the bill, and they needed to keep the electric on because he had a sick child living in the house. Not only did he not have children, he had plenty of money to pay the bill. What was I thinking? I guess I believed that I had the power to change him. I saw many good qualities in this guy and really believed that with my influence, he would become a good person. I was wrong.

During the first few years of our business, he would do things that would cause many problems for us. They were all related to his dishonesty with vendors or customers. It always came back and bit him, and unfortunately, by association...me also. I remember being on vacation and getting a call from one of our referees. He said the entire staff had quit because Tom treated them all terribly, and they would not work for him. In the end I took care of our employees and smoothed things over. The final straw came after 6 years in business. I went away for my summer vacation and Tom was left to run the business. One of our money market accounts paid us around $250 per month in dividends. Each month we would get a check. While I was away, I should have received two checks. When I got home and asked about the checks, he told me that the computers at the money market company were down and they didn’t send any checks. Boy, did that sound fishy. Of course, I called the company and they said they had the cancelled checks. They mailed them to me for verification. Clear as day my name was in his writing on the back of the checks. I went on a rampage. I was furious to say the least. Here was one of my best friends, whom I trusted, who just stole money right in front of me. I ended up going through the books and found many thousands of dollars missing. My first thought was to press charges, but I later realized that it wouldn’t bring the money back and it certainly wouldn’t bring my trust in our friendship back. I simply moved my stuff out of the house we jointly owned and split the company in half. I went my way and he went his. As I said in the first chapter, I ended up reopening and selling my half, and he never amounted to anything with his business. He never reopened.

Tom lost a business that was making a substantial amount of money; more importantly, he lost his best friend. I was the only person that had faith in him and put my trust in him. So what is the purpose of this story? I guess it is the old “what comes around goes around.” Since we know that honesty and ethics are the most important aspect of any business, we can see here the punishment for bad behavior. It came around very quickly for him. Within a week he lost his business and best friend. I moved on and continued to be successful in life and he went on to con other people. To this day I am sure that he regrets his actions, although I would doubt very much that he has changed.

Now I want you to put yourself in the place of a customer, spouse or friend. Whom would you prefer to have any relationship with, an honest person with integrity and ethics, or a person who will tell you what you want to hear, whether it is true or not? I try to live my life by always asking how I would like to be treated. Most of my business decisions have been made with my customers’ thoughts in mind. After all, if I don’t listen to what they need, I cannot help them and they will not buy. It’s that simple. I need to be inside the mind of my customer at all times if I am to help him meet his needs. The simple truth is that people want to be involved with honest, hard-working, ethical people. Do I keep saying simple? I do! The reason for this is very simple! If you are honest and ethical, your life will change. It is something over which you have complete control. Honesty + Ethics + Desire to Help = Success. Of course you have to throw a little bit of hard work in there, but success in life comes down to honesty and ethics.

Getting Started

Many people ask me the same question over and over. They ask, how do I get started? Of course my simple answer is Just Do It! However, this doesn’t mean that it is easy to get started. I have helped many people get started and each has a different set of circumstances, which determine how they accomplish their goals.

First, there are a couple of common elements which you need to start a business or any venture, no matter what your situation.

1. Market Research – It’s important to understand your market. If you start this company, who will be your competition and how will they affect your company? How many people need your service? There are so many different areas of market research. The key is to determine if your business will have the ability to get through the competition and out to the customer. One of the best means of doing Market Research is getting a group of people together who may potentially be your customers. Ask them pertinent questions having to do with the product or service you are going to start. You can learn more from these 1 or 2 hour sessions than you could learn in years of making business mistakes!

2. Business Plan – After you feel confident in your product and or service, then it is time to build a plan. Plans need to be written. Your business plan can be as simple or as detailed as you like. The plan is a guideline for you to follow as you start your business. What is your mission? What are your long-term goals? What are your short-term goals to help you accomplish the long-term goals? What type of marketing are you going to do? What are your expenses going to be? My experience tells me that if you don’t write down everything, it doesn’t usually happen.

Let’s look at the person who has enough capital to start the business, but works a full time job and has a family to support. This group of people is in a great position to start their own businesses. Many people say to me they don’t have the time to start a business. But if they don’t make the time, they will never get out of the rat race. If you really desire change, then you must make changes. Nothing can change in your life if YOU don’t take the steps to make the changes. It’s really quite simple. So you are working a full time job and you have a family to support. That is a perfect situation to start your own venture. Let’s say you are working for a company and working 8 hours a day. If my math is right, that is only 33% of the day. That leaves a lot of time left to work. If you spent an additional 4 hours a day working toward your dream, then within a short period of time, you will be able to work full time at your dream.

It’s important to know all about your business prior to starting. How do you do that? I always recommend working in the industry or for a company that does what you want to do. There is no better means of learning what is involved in running your own venture. If you must, work for free. No business owner will turn away free help! I’m a firm believer in working for free or very little money prior to starting a new company. Not only will you learn things you may want to do, you will definitely learn things to avoid in your venture by knowing what NOT to do.

I’m going to give you a couple of examples of learning while you work. My first long-term company was my Paintball business. However, when I started my company I worked for a medical lab 60 hours per week. My parents taught me that the goal is to find a company to work for and stay there as long as you can. It was a great job. I worked my tail off but was paid very well and was able to buy anything I wanted. When I started Survival South, I did not give up my job. I couldn’t afford to have zero cash flow. As with most young people, once I started making money, I got into debt. I bought a new car, some musical recording equipment, etc. I continued to work 60 hours a week while I worked my new company. I did this for a year and a half. At that point, I was generating plenty of money and leaving my $35,000 per year job was no problem. I remember walking into my parent’s house at the time to tell them I was leaving my job. They had no idea that my company was doing so well. They thought it was just something I did for fun on the weekend. When I told them I was leaving my job (that my mother had gotten me) they were not very happy. Of course, when I told them that my company had $80,000 in the bank after our first year, they supported all my efforts.

My next example is how I got into the dating industry and eventually the Internet business. I was struggling to make ends meet after losing everything in 1990. It was tough. I started many businesses and looked for a job. I had two little boys to take care of, which was the most important part of my life. I had applied for a job at a dating service, which intrigued me. It was a telemarketing management job for which I had a little experience, but not much. I didn’t get hired. I then went on and added telemarketing services to my own marketing company. After opening a couple of telemarketing centers for two companies, I felt I had enough experience to revisit the dating service. I did, and I got hired. After a very short time I realized that I enjoyed it and wanted to learn all the facets of the business. I asked to do sales; I asked to do their marketing; I asked to manage their sales staff; I worked with their accountant and understood their business. I did all this extra work without asking for more money. Within a short time, they asked me to take over running the company, since I had learned all aspects of the company. I was named Director and Vice President. The entire time I was working, I was planning my own dating service. From the beginning, when I realized I enjoyed the business and I could make money while helping people, I knew I was going to do this for a living.

For those of you who do not have major obligations, who are just getting out of college or would like to make a change, my advice to you is take advantage of your youth and freedom from responsibility. This is when you can conquer the world if you have what it takes--if you Just Do It.

So you just graduated college or high school and you want to start your own business. Well obviously you don’t have a lick of experience. The next part of your education is learning the business. This means getting a job or interning at a company to learn whatever you can in whatever time it takes to accomplish this goal. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel. If you have to work for free during the day, get a night job to have some cash flow. As I have said before, I believe that giving away your free services will pay you back tenfold. Of course if you can get paid even a small amount of money while learning your new profession, then it’s a bonus.

While you are learning, it’s important that you focus on the goal. Learn as much as possible so that you can start your own company. However, it’s very important to learn what not to do as well as what to do. If the company for which you are working is perfect, then you don’t have to make changes. But my guess is that the company is not perfect and there are many changes you can make to improve upon your boss’s idea. When you see something or learn something, write it down. Write it all down--Everything. Keep all your notes because when you are ready to move on, you will have it all in writing to help formulate your business plan.

The point of all this is simple. In fact, the point of everything I am writing is simple. If you really want something, then you have to go for it. Just Do It! You have to do whatever it takes to accomplish your dreams. There is nothing worse than being on your deathbed saying that you should have. You only live once. One of my favorite sayings is, “Don’t let life pass you by, before you live you will probably die.” I wrote that when I was 16 and have tried to live my life with that in mind since.

Leads

There are many aspects to being successful in business. You have to be honest. You have to be hard working. You have to follow up with customers. You have to do so much. However, none of this matters if you don’t have customers. What does that mean? It means that you need to generate leads. What good does it do for your business if you possess all these great qualities and ethics if you have no customers? Leads are the essence of business development. Leads are people who are interested in your product, and leads will eventually buy your product or service.

I believe that a successful business or salesperson must have an ongoing lead generation program to sustain his business. I have seen so many businesses get caught up in fulfilling their sales that they drop the ball on generating leads. Before they cut anything else, they cut their marketing budget.

How can you generate leads? This is an open-ended question. There are so many means of marketing which I can’t begin to get into here. That will be another manual. Generating leads usually comes in the form of marketing. Marketing can be as simple as saying hello to someone in the grocery store to as elaborate as a multi million-dollar TV campaign. My favorite is the Internet. If you work the Internet and have an effective website, then collecting leads is extremely easy. Keep in mind that lead generation is not free. The key is to figure out the most cost-effective means for you to generate leads to build your business.

There is one note I must give you on advertising. I have spent millions of dollars on advertising over the years. During that time period, I always believed I knew what I was doing. Then in 2005 I realized I was wrong. Yes even I can be wrong! I realized that most of my advertising was geared toward name recognition. I would advertise on TV and in the newspaper and send blanket post card mailings all over the place with no consistency. I know the facts; a person needs to see your ad at least 5 times to even remember your product. However I didn’t do a great job of this. I still had my core marketing, direct response marketing, which worked very well for my companies. So why did I spend all this money working on marketing that didn’t work? Some of it might have been ego. It’s always fun to see your face in the paper or on TV. Some of it might have been because I didn’t really understand what I was doing. Like I said, about 6 months ago it hit me that even with a wealth of knowledge and advertising experience, I wasn’t doing it right. Now don’t get me wrong. If you have plenty of money to spend, there is nothing wrong with branding and creating a great image. Look at the amount of money big business spends. Once you create a large amount of advertising money, you can spend much more. However, if you are on a budget, then keep your marketing to programs that are going to create leads. Name recognition is a wonderful thing. Generating quality leads at an affordable price is even better!

Follow Up

Have you ever wondered what truly sets aside the successful from the unsuccessful? Don’t get me wrong; you can succeed without good follow up. However, you can’t be the best you can be, and you certainly will work harder in order to accomplish your sales goals.

Follow up is important in every aspect of the sale as well as after the sale. If you follow these simple rules, you will see a huge difference in your sales. I prefer follow up through email if at all possible. If not, use the old-fashioned post office.

1. After you talk to clients on the phone for the first time, prior to meeting them, send along an email letting them know it was great talking to them and you are looking forward to helping them.

2. Once you have met with the client, send them another email letting them know that you appreciate them giving you the time to present your product or service, and that you will get back to them as soon as possible with the answers to their questions…and you look forward to helping them.

3. Once they have bought from you, send them a letter thanking them for using your services and ask them if they know of anyone else that could use your services and to please refer them to you. This letter should also include a survey form asking them to evaluate your services. Let them know that you are always trying to improve your business, and to please be honest with their answers. The last question should be, “Would you refer me to a friend or business associate?” If yes, then, “Do you know of anyone currently needing my service?” and include spaces for him or her to write in names.

4. From here on in, keep them on your mailing list. I’m a big believer in newsletters that can be sent monthly. This allows you to keep your name in front of them forever. By sending them a monthly letter, you are almost guaranteeing that if they need your services in the future, they will be calling you.

Follow up is the most underused tool in all sales, as well as in our personal lives. If you are cultivating a new customer, it is imperative to follow up and keep in contact with your customer. There is always someone waiting in line to help him or her if you don’t. If you don’t follow up you might as well just give your customer to your competitor. In this day and age you need to stand out and show why your customer is important to you.

All my follow up notes let them know how I look forward to helping them. You will see that if your true intention is to help your customer, your friend, your family or anyone else, you will get rewarded in the end. It may be a sale, a favor, a smile, a hug, or respect. You will always win if you are honestly trying to help. I have repeated myself here, I’m sure!

To follow up correctly, you need a follow up system. There are hundreds of tools out there in the marketplace to help you perform follow up. Many of them are database programs such as Outlook and Act. There are also many companies that offer follow up systems such as monthly post card mailings, monthly newsletter mailings, and emailing services. These are all great ways to maintain contact with your database. However, if you collect email addresses, and you should for everyone you meet, then you can do this yourself through your email program on your home computer. Be aware though that if your database becomes too big, your ISP may limit your outgoing mail. If you get to that size, then it becomes worth the investment to purchase your own server and host your own email system. At that point you have no limit to your emailing and you can grow your database as large as you would like. I currently have over 18,000 people in my active database. When I am ready to do my monthly mailing I simply write my note, add a link to my newsletter and press a button. The entire mailing takes about 20 minutes to go out. Once the mailing goes out, the emails start coming in with inquiries. It’s almost automatic.

We have mostly talked about follow up with a customer once he or she becomes a customer. What about when you are first starting to talk with a lead? Again, you can use most of the computer programs out there to help you keep organized in your lead follow up. I know I might get a lot of grief for this, but I prefer the old fashioned way of following up with my leads. I have tried many of the computer programs but I am still more productive with my old way. It’s extremely simple. First you need to purchase an accordion file with the numbers 1-31 printed on it. You will also need one that has the months of the year printed on it. Here is how simple it is to use. I take my lead sheet and mark the time and date that I talked with the potential client. When I finish my first phone call with them, I tell them that I will call them back within a certain amount of time. The time will depend on the conversation. So let’s say today is March 12, 2008 and they want me to call them back in two weeks. Well I would put their lead into the file section that says 26. This is fourteen days, two weeks in the future. Now when March 26, 2008 comes along, I simply go through the leads in that folder and call them. I always take good notes when talking with my customers and I know exactly what our conversation was when we last talked. Is this archaic? Probably, but it has worked great for me during my entire sales career.

The monthly file works the same way. If they told me to call them in two months, I note the date on my lead form and the file it in the May portion of the other file folder. At the beginning of each month, I take all the leads out of the month we are in and file them in the dates I should be calling--simple!

Just remember that follow up, as well as follow through, are two of the most important aspect of being successful. If you only do this aspect well, you will have more sales than you have ever had.

Keep in mind that it is so much easier to get an additional sale from a past customer than it is to cultivate a new customer. Most sales people work for the sale and forget that after the sale follow up is vital. If you have been in business for many years and you haven’t been in touch with all your past customers, you are leaving money on the table. I guarantee that one of them or someone they know is ready to buy something that you sell. If you don’t keep in touch with them, then they won’t buy from you.

I’ll finish this section with a story about my brother. My brother Jeff and I are very close. When I first got into the Real Estate business he told me about his Realtor. I said to him, “Jeff, you have lived in your house for years and have no intention on leaving.” He said, “You are right, but if I ever do, I am calling my Realtor.” So why does my brother have this loyalty to someone who has never sold him a house? About 10 years ago my brother and his wife were thinking about buying a new house. They met a Realtor and he showed them several houses. At that point they decided not to buy. For the past 10 years, my brother and his wife have received birthday cards, anniversary cards, and holiday cards. This is awesome follow up. This Realtor is doing what he should. He is following up even though he never received a sale. Eventually my brother will move, eventually he will use this Realtor. Never give up on your customers until they tell you to stop following up. They will appreciate it as well and tell others about you.

The Soft Close

I have read a lot of sales books and frankly don’t agree with most of them. Most of them talk about closing techniques and all this other stuff they believe are vital to making sales. I can honestly say that I have never used any of their techniques, at least not consciously. I was never comfortable with selling people. I was always comfortable with helping them.

One might think that I am going to spend a significant amount of time and details dealing with “the close.” That is not my plan. Instead, I believe that if you truly believe in your product, and you are truly trying to help your customer, then the sales part of the job is easy. There are some very basic elements that you do need to know to accomplish the goal of helping your customer. First, you have to identify their needs. I know that sounds basic but you would be amazed how many salespeople don’t use the easiest sales tool available to them--their ears. So how do you go about identifying their needs? Ok, again this isn’t rocket science. To identify their needs, you must ask…questions! However, you must ask the right kind of questions--open-ended questions.

Open-ended questions are questions that cannot be answered with one word. They can’t be answered with a simple yes or no. Open-ended questions allow your customer to elaborate on his or her needs. By using these types of questions, you are able to obtain a substantial amount of information, which, in turn, will give you the tools to help your customer. I know I have said this before and I am sure I will say this many more times: Help your customer. Help your customer. Help your customer. If you help your customer, you will get paid. It’s really that simple. An open-ended question can be as simple as, “How can you see (insert product) helping you to (do whatever)?” Simple questions like this will let customers sell themselves on the product. Once they sell themselves, they are really buying you and your company. For this reason, it is important that they trust and believe in your knowledge of the industry and products. You need to show the ability to understand their business.

Ok, I know you have been waiting for the powerful question that is going to change your sales life. I know that all top sales people must have something in common. There must be many ways to maneuver your customer into buying your product or service. Are you ready? The answer to this age-old dilemma is so simple you are not going to believe me. Ok, here it is…Ask for the Sale. That’s it. That is the secret between being good and being mediocre. You have to ask for the sale. That is the powerful close which has allowed me to reach the top sales position in every company I have either worked for or owned. I have seen so many sales people go into a situation and do a terrific job of educating and answering objections and questions. They know their product, they are honest, they are well-liked, well-groomed, great work ethic but they still don’t get the sale. The reason is, they don’t ask for the sale. I know what you are saying, it can’t be that easy. It is.

One exercise that I have used most of my life to help me become the best sales person I can be is to reverse roles. I always ask myself, what would I want? How would I like to be treated? What would make me buy this product? For some reason people don’t always put those ingredients together. People don’t always treat people the way they want to be treated. I use this technique in many aspects of both my personal and business life. I find that by reversing roles I am able to really understand my customers better.

So the “soft close” is truly soft. There is no pressure involved. Not only will you receive a tremendous amount of new sales from this easy technique, you will find that your referral rate climbs through the roof. You will also find that your customers will become repeat customers. The two most important aspects of sales are repeat customers and referrals. As I have said, it is much easier to develop a current or past customer versus trying to build a new customer. At this point I have been in Real Estate for almost 8 years. When I first started, I employed everything that I talk about in this manual. I gave my customers great customer service, lots of hard work and attention, and most important I truly cared about my customers and they knew it. I worked my tail off the first couple of years in the business building my business. Fast-forward a couple of years. Even though we generate over 30 - 60 buyer leads per day, I do not need to take any of these leads to have a very successful Real Estate career. The reason for this is everything that I am trying to get through to you. I provided excellent service with great work ethic, great follow up and I truly cared about my customers. For that reason, I continually receive referrals and business from many of my past customers. I remain the top agent in my company and I don’t even sell Real Estate anymore. This is all done because of the groundwork I have laid while building my business. If you get nothing out of this manual, please take with you that if you help your customer and ask for the sale, you will succeed more than your wildest dreams would have ever believed.

Don’t for a second believe that the soft sales approach doesn’t mean you don’t have to work hard. You will always have to work hard to succeed; the difference is as you start to succeed, you will learn more and more about working smart. Working hard and working smart doesn’t always mean you have to work long hours. I know many successful people that work only 30-50 hours per week. I can tell you that when they first started that was not the case. They worked very hard and very long hours to accomplish their goals. They also spent a lot of time learning and educating themselves in their industry. The more you understand, the easier it is to build. This is all done through time management and systems.

Building Your Business

I have always looked at each job I have had as if it were my own business. I don’t know how to do a half ass job at anything. I either do it right or I don’t do it at all. More important than money is the fact that I have done a great job and have been the best I can be. Money always follows success.

One of the commonest mistakes I see small business people make is not having a plan. Without having a plan you can’t have future goals or means to accomplish those goals. I have learned a lot over the years and I am going to touch on a few of the most important aspects of building a business.

First, to build a business you must have a written plan. The plan must incorporate 1 – 5 years of financial goals. The plan must have a marketing plan to understand how you are going to obtain your financial goals. This plan is always a work in progress. Nothing is as easy as it seems when you write it down. However, everything is obtainable if you do write these goals and plans down. I have written many business plans. Some are very elaborate and some are just a couple of pages. The key is to write down and follow the plan. When something isn’t working you have deviate, and then just add the changes to the plan. I don’t think I have ever followed my plan exactly because in business, things change all the time. Once you really get into the nuts and bolts of running your business you will see that there are many things that you thought you knew in which you really didn’t know. It’s just reality.

I was talking to my friend Joe just the other day. Joe is a great guy and one of my best friends. We met when we were 15 years old. That’s 32 years ago. Amazing! Joe truly has a great heart and is always thinking about helping people. He has been there when I have done well and he has always been the first person there when I fell down. His words of encouragement are very honest and sincere. He will always hold a strong place in my heart. Joe has been very successful in land development. He currently owns shopping plazas in the Northeast. This past year Joe has decided to venture into a new business of a golf range/training facility and restaurant. When we talked the other day we had a great discussion about how much more involved this work was than building shopping centers. Everything he thought he had planned was set to go. Of course there was something else that came up that either cost more money or had him adjusting his plan. The reason I am telling you this is to understand that no matter how successful you are or have been in the past, you will always find things are not as easy as when you first came up with the concept. Be prepared to adjust and go with the flow.

The other thing that Joe and I talked about is systems, one of the most important aspects of running a business. Systems are so important that the lack of systems are the reason that over 90% of startup businesses fail. Most people start a business with little or no business experience. They were good in their job and now they want to own their own company. I applaud them for wanting to make this move. They are on their way to the biggest adventure of their lives. But if you are going to take the risk, do it right.

Without systems you have no way of growing your business. The reason we use systems is to be able to have documented procedures on how we run our businesses. Every business should have an operations manual. During your business life you will be hiring, firing, training and retraining people. You will have great people and you will have not so great people. You will hire people you thought were going to be awesome that turned out to be busts and vice versa. If you have systems, you will be able to plug most anyone into the system and it will work. Look at McDonalds. They have done this better than anyone. They knew that to operate a very profitable business they must have simple documented means of accomplishing all the tasks that are needed to run a McDonalds. They also did this for duplication purposes. You can go into a McDonalds in Massachusetts or a McDonalds in Florida and you will find they are exactly the same. Systems. (Read Michael Gerber’s E-Myth – This book changed how I look at running businesses and to me is the best book on business.)

Most businesses get started without systems and then add them later. This is doable but definitely not the smartest way to get going. I have done it both ways and can tell you that having great systems in place will accomplish a heck of a lot more for you in a much shorter time period. There are many systems that go into running a business. Here is a list of some of them.

Systems

1. Accounting

2. Marketing Systems

3. Lead Generation

4. Lead Delegation and Distribution

5. Lead Follow Up

6. Customer Follow Up

7. Phone Answering Procedures

8. Sales Calls

9. Customer Support

10. Sales Support

11. Inventory

12. Pricing

13. Commission

14. Paperwork

15. Management

16. Training

17. Recruiting

18. Firing

There are so many more possible systems; it all depends on the type of business you open. These are just a few to give you an idea of what you need to do when you get started. These all must be in writing because if it isn’t written it isn’t law.

You should also have your job descriptions written and given to your employees as you hire them. It is important that they understand exactly what they are expected to do at a minimum. Of course my favorite line at the bottom of each job description reads something like this: “These are your duties along with anything else they may come up in the course of doing business which needs your attention.” This lets them know that they need to adjust with the flow as things change. Job descriptions may be changed as needed.

The other major reason we build systems is for growth. To grow smoothly, we need to be able to duplicate our efforts. If our systems are in writing, this growth becomes much easier to control and obtain. One of the flaws I see in small businesses that want to grow is that they try to go too big too quickly. I’m a believer in slow, steady growth. Growth shouldn’t start until you have all your systems in place and understand your business totally. In my opinion, the first year of business is a learning curve. This is when you find out that things aren’t exactly what you had thought they were and changes were needed.

I like growing from the inside out. I have always been one to promote from within. Usually, when I start a company I have someone in mind to take over my position as soon as possible. Remember, you want the business to work for you, not you work for the business. It took me years to figure that one out. By having someone groomed to take over, when you are ready to move on, the transition is easier. Easy is good.

When you start to grow your business think compact. Grow your business slowly and surely at first. After you have your business running smoothly and successfully you can think about opening another office, location, branch, or add markets. The key to growing is to take your time and do it right. Don’t be in such a hurry to be rich. If you take your time your odds increase tremendously. Just add one location at a time and when it is up and running as smoothly and successfully as your first, go to the next.

I also believe in building out with your business. To me this only makes sense. Why add a location that is not close to your original location? Until you have mastered opening locations, be sure that your new location is close enough for you to be there quickly in case of emergency. As you start to grow this way you can eventually hire regional management to help you maintain and grow your locations while you spend time expanding. If you grow smart, you will increase your chances of being successful.

The Power of Free

I like free! Free is a great thing that most small businesses do not take advantage of understanding. I have told this too many people and they look at me strangely. They say, “I can’t afford to do that. That will cost me a fortune.”

Next door to my office is a pizza place. They have excellent pizza, probably the best in the area. Unfortunately he was struggling very much with his restaurant. At one point he asked me what he could do to get the message out about his pizza and to get more people through his store. The first question I asked him was how much it cost to make a pizza. He told me it cost him about $2. That means it probably cost him closer to $1.50 or so.

I said to him, “Why don’t you give away pizza on National Pizza Day?” His answer to me of course was that there is no such thing as NPD. I said that he was right, but why not start one? He thought the idea was silly and didn’t want to spend the money. But think about it. All he had to do was send a mailing to 1,000 homes advertising free pizza on National Pizza Day. Just stop by the pizza place and get your one free pizza with this coupon. My guess if he sent 1,000 coupons out, he would have had close to two or three hundred redemptions. Ok, so let’s look at the costs; if it cost him $2 for a pizza and he gave away 300 pizzas, the cost would be $600. To do a post card mailing to 1,000 homes cost about $400. So for $1,000 he would have received 200-300 new customers that would have loved his pizza because it was great pizza. Not to mention that if they came in the door they were likely to buy another pizza or a drink or something else because they were getting the free pizza. He most likely would have made his money back from other sales with his new customer base. Don’t you think they would have told everyone about their free pizza no strings attached? If you run an ad in the paper for $500 and get only 10 customers you are pretty happy. Can you see the power of free? Unfortunately he is now out of business. If he had only listened to me I guarantee you he would still be in business and would be thriving. He is a great example of wanting and talking about success, but he just didn’t do it.

This process is very cost effective and is a great way, probably the best way to insure a quick start to your business. People will always respond to free stuff. Our society loves it. The best way to see if this works for you is to simply figure out the cost of acquiring a sale. Once you know the cost of acquiring a sale you can determine if giving away product will be the best way of building your client base. Now here is another example of the power of free.

My last company was called Internet Community Concepts. We worked with radio and TV groups developing private label Internet products. Of course that wasn’t a product you could give away so I had to come up with something better. To be successful, I had to get meetings with the top radio executives in the country. My brain starting thinking and I realized that most executives play golf. That was the answer. I knew there were 12 executives I wanted to meet. I quickly ordered 12 putters, 12 putting greens for the office, and a dozen golf balls. Everything had our ICC logo on it. I then sent all these Next Day Mail to the executives with a note that said, “While you are putting around trying to figure out your next Internet move, give ICC a call and let us help.” It was simple and to the point. This giveaway got me in contact with 6 of the 12 executives I wanted to meet. I got half my goal with a simple and relatively inexpensive marketing approach. They were very welcoming when I called and I worked with a few of them regularly. Even though my company ran out of money prior to me securing any deals with these six, I had job offers from a few of them when my company closed down. (The company was sold for $80 million, but the deal fell apart right after the stock market crashed in April of 2000.) If I had more time, I would have converted a couple of them to customers. The radio world was very slow to react to the Internet. However I did get the name Mr. Internet in Radio Inc. magazine and was a guest speaker at several conferences. I learned a lot during that time period. Again, the power of free was very successful.

Building Long Term Relationships

Many businesses and sales people go after the quick buck. This is a big mistake. To be successful in business it is imperative that you build successful relationships with your customers. They will be the lifeblood of any business you choose to start. I have seen so many businesses and sales people that go after the quick buck and end up being big losers in the long run.

I recently had my pool resurfaced at my house as well as my dock rebuilt. Now here is a great example of two companies working with two completely different objectives in mind. Let’s start with the pool company. We went into the pool company and they were as nice as can be. The owner as well as their sales rep. spent a substantial amount of time talking to us and discussing our options. Both my wife and I felt comfortable with the company and the owner. We went ahead with the job and gave them the deposit. This was in July. The owner assured me that the pool would take no more than a week to two weeks once they got started. They were to start in two weeks. Of course, once they had our deposit we were kind of stuck. Sound familiar? They didn’t start working on our pool for almost two months once after we had signed on the dotted line. They gave us many excuses why they were behind, the main one being that other jobs ahead of ours were taking longer to finish. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that they had drained our pool at the two week mark so during this time period we couldn’t use our pool at all. Once they started working on the pool we were excited about finally being able to use it, even though it was the end of the summer. Well, the one to two weeks turned into over two months to finish. It was ridiculous. They came out and worked on the pool for an hour here and an hour there. The owner wouldn’t really talk to us anymore and the sales rep. blamed on this guy or that guy. Well it finally was finished and it looked great. No problem at all with the work, it was beautiful. Within a week we noticed that the waterfall was leaking. To make very long story short, it took 4 months for them to fix the leak. I finally threatened to take them to court to get the money back so I could hire someone else to get the waterfall fixed. I must have called them 15 times without ever getting a call back. I went into the store several times until they just got sick of me and fixed the thing.

So to recap, they didn’t deliver what they said they would do, and they would not respond or return my calls when I wanted answers. This is a perfect example of take the money and run attitude we so many times from businesses and sales people. Being in the Real Estate business we often get asked for recommendations for pool companies. If this company had done right by me they would have had at least 5 referrals from me by now. The reality is that I have told many people that they were terrible and advised them not to buy from them. There’s an old saying: if you do a great job they will tell 5 people and if you do a bad job they will tell 20 people.

Let’s move forward to the dock company. I called three companies to come out to my house for a quote. I decided on the person who actually came in higher in price than the other two. I did this because I felt good about the person, and I had talked to a couple of people that had used him and said he was great. We had a hurricane and he ended up starting the job a month and a half later than we contracted. The difference between the Pool Company and the Dock Company in dealing with this was amazing. The dock guy called me weekly to update me on the progress of when he was going to get to my dock. He always thanked me for being patient. He threw in a better boatlift because he appreciated my patience. I never had to call him to find out when he would be here because he called me first. Once he started he told me that it would take 3 weeks to complete. It actually took 4 weeks because he felt that the sea wall needed some work, and he didn’t charge me any extra. He said that the most important aspect of his work was to make sure his customer was happy. He, the owner, was always available when I had a question and still is when I have called him a few times with questions. In the meantime, I have referred 3 people to him so far and will always recommend him to my customers. On a side note, after almost 4 years, he recently came out to my house within a few days of a call and fixed a sinking staircase. Of course, there was no charge.

So why am I telling you all this? The pool guy was going for the quick buck. Eventually, this will come back to bite him. Eventually, all the people that he made the quick buck from will tell enough people, and his business will go down. When the market slows down, so will his business. The dock guy, on the other hand, made a conscious effort to keep us informed and explained everything to us. He earned our business for life. When I have a customer that needs dock work, I gladly give them AJ’s phone number.

When you are building your business, be sure to follow the dock guy’s method of dealing with issues. There are always circumstances that come up that might delay your delivery. Things happen all the time. If you treat your customers like gold, you will get a great return on your investment. You can never go wrong by keeping your customers informed. Build your business relationships for life and you will have a life-long business.

If you remember, we talked about a follow up system. Again, and I can’t say this enough, it is so much less expensive to keep a past customer and receive additional business from them than it is to find new business. If you do a great job and continue to keep in contact with them after the sale, you will have a customer for life. Just think. The next time you have a new product to market you can simply contact your current customer base to start the sales process. They already trust you and will buy from you again because you did what you said you were going to do, and didn’t go after the quick buck. I like contacting past customers a minimum of 4 times per year. We do this in newsletters, holiday cards and just saying hi emails. This is very simple and all very inexpensive.

Help As Many People As Possible

This last portion of my manual is really the most important part of my philosophy. It is not my philosophy alone but also that of almost every successful person I have ever met or read about. It’s all about giving back and helping people.

I spend probably as much time thinking about how I can help people as I do thinking about how I can make my company successful. The theory is that good things happen to good people. This is so true. I know that it might be hard to believe, but there is so much truth in this statement. I, like most of the successful people I know, try to give 10% of their income back to charity. But it doesn’t stop at money. It’s about getting involved and doing something to make your community a better place to live.

When I was a kid, probably 16 or so, I remember seeing some inner city kids causing trouble in Boston. I started thinking then about how can we change this attitude. I learned that there were so many young kids that were dropping out of school and turning to a life of crime. I knew there was a way to help them, but I wasn’t sure how. Well, now I do. I, along with a couple of other wonderful people, have started a foundation called Hope Chest. Hope Chest’s purpose is to sponsor children and send them to college if they graduate high school. We are just in the beginning of this foundation and it has been a ton of work to get going. However, the work will pay off in 12 years when we start sending 250 kids a year to college. These are children that have no hope and therefore, no dreams. Their idea of success is a drug dealer driving a BMW. By showing them in first grade that they have hope and a chance at success, we are changing families for generations to come. It’s awesome and it is my purpose in life. Everything else that I do, I do to support my family and pay my bills. I want to help as many people as possible. To me, this is the best thing I can do for my community. If all goes well, I will be expanding this program throughout the state of Florida and then throughout the country. After all, education will change lives. When I am on my deathbed, this is how I want to be remembered.

I don’t think I can impress upon you how important it is to help your neighbor. By doing so you give yourself an impressive standing in the community, but more importantly it will make you feel good. There is nothing that feels quite as good as knowing you have helped someone. It’s good for business and it’s great for the soul!

There are so many things you can do. I encourage my entire staff to do something to help. I encourage them to volunteer at schools, hospitals, soup kitchens and more. One of my staff members runs a golf tournament for MS each year and is very successful with this event. You can never give enough. Remember, it’s not always about money. If you don’t have much and can’t afford to give any away at this time, find another way to give. Teach your children to give and to help. Start them on the right path to understanding that not everyone has life as good as they do, and that people need help. The only way they truly receive help is from other people.

And In The End

Well this is the end of my manual. Hopefully, you have gained some insight into how I have become successful and how I have trained many others to be successful, too. Life is very short and it’s important that you do the best you can and do it with a good heart. Never jeopardize your integrity for a buck. Always try to help your customers accomplish their goals. Always treat people with respect--the way you would like to be treated. These are all just part of the Golden Rules of Life.

In the end, don’t forget what is really important in life. Your family will be and should be your highest priority. Even though we talk about how hard you have to work to be successful, don’t lose sight of your family. Take time to smell the roses. Be sure to take as many vacations per year as possible. It’s important to recharge those batteries and reward yourself for all your hard work. You deserve it.

Don’t worry about failing at whatever you decide to do. If you follow most of my guidelines you are increasing your chances of success. However, there are so many circumstances that can affect you in a positive or negative way. Don’t let that deter you from giving 100% to succeed in your dreams. Don’t listen to all the people that are going to tell you that you are crazy for thinking about following your dreams. They will tell you that you are being irresponsible. They will tell you that you don’t know what you are doing. They will tell you anything to stop you from doing this. Why? The real reason is that they don’t want you to succeed. If you succeed, that makes it harder for them to accept the fact that they didn’t follow their heart, their dreams. Once you start on your way to following your dream, they will fight you every step of the way. They can’t wait to tell you, “I told you so.” Remember, even if you don’t succeed in your first business attempt, you didn’t fail. You succeeded in accomplishing what most of the world would love to do, but didn’t have the courage. You might not have succeeded in winning in the business world, but you can certainly go to your grave knowing that you tried and took the risk. You will have no regrets. Think about that…no regrets. If you can go to your death with no regrets then you won at the game of life. That’s the goal from the beginning. So in closing I want you to remember just one final thing. Be honest to yourself, be honest to your customers, be honest to your family and Just Do It!