Interviewee: …I think the real benefit with this type of marketing is that a business can get their brand name out there in front of a large company, like Lowe’s or K-Mart, and they can get serious recognition in a couple of weeks.

Michael: You were doing these events, what were you selling the events? You’ve got to remind me.

Interviewee: Well, basically, you’re working an event with a local retailer selling out in front of their location. I was selling Dish Network.

Michael: You were selling Dish Network. Okay.

Interviewee: Dish Network services, yeah, but we’ve also done it with ADT Security as well. Yeah, it can be used for pretty much any type of industry. That type of medium.

Michael: So you kind of perfected this event selling.

Interviewee: Yeah, I’ve been doing it for about four years, four and a half years now, and just recently been doing some consulting with some local business that it just kind of stumbled upon the opportunity because people started talking to me about wanting to do this with their business, and, you know, the light bulb went off.

Michael: Well, the bottom line is, people need to get customers, and what you’ve done seems to be pretty effective in setting up at these events and getting customers. Is that right?

Interviewee: Well, yeah it’s been very effective. I think it’s kind of a glorified joint venture is what it really is.

Michael: Yeah.

Interviewee: You’re out in front and you’re offering exposure for the retailer.

Michael: What was the very first event stuff you started hustling?

Interviewee: Well, we actually fell into a very good company. We started with Lowe’s Home Improvement Stores, which are huge.

Michael: Now who’s we? Is this a multiple person deal?

Interviewee: Well, myself and my partner basically started everything out.

Michael: Okay, what were you selling though?

Interviewee: We were selling Dish Network, and we were trying to come up with a way to get the product out in front of people, and we didn’t have any money.

Michael: Okay, so you were repping Dish Network.

Interviewee: Right, we were a rep for a local retailer. We were selling to people for a local retailer.

Michael: Now how much could you make on every deal you signed up?

Interviewee: When I first started out, I was making like $75 a sale.

Michael: On every sale, every order you wrote?

Interviewee: On every order that I wrote, right.

Michael: But you didn’t have to do the installation did you?

Interviewee: No, we actually would make the sale, write it up, and then we would submit it to be installed. We set an install date. No money changed hands. We basically…

Michael: You got a commitment.

Interviewee: Right, we just got a commitment from a customer and told them about it. Educated them on the product and had them installed, and like one to three days later, they were watching TV.

Michael: Yeah, you know, I used to sell cable door to door. It’s kind of similar.

Interviewee: Oh, really?

Michael: Yeah, I used to knock on doors selling Southwestern Cable. So you go write the order and there was good money, man. I mean, let me tell you.

Interviewee: Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, people want TV, and you have an alternative. When I started selling Dish, it was a very hot product.

Michael: Yeah.

Interviewee: It still is. I mean, it’s somewhat saturated now, but it was kind of a hot item back then, and people wanted it.

Michael: Okay, so you made $75 on each deal and you figured, “How the hell can I get more customers?”

Interviewee: Free money, you know? There’s the traditional ways of advertising. Getting fliers out and paying for yellow page ads or paying for direct mailings, and we just said, “We don’t have any money. How can we do this? How can we benefit from the store, the customer and ourselves at the same time, and get a concentration of sales in two days?” So we basically started brainstorming on thinking of locations where people are shopping and where this type of market might be suitable to Dish Network, which is about 95% of the people out there. We approached Lowe’s Home Improvement Stores, who we decided had people who would be responsive customers. They’re in there buying things for their home.

Michael: Did you approach just one specific location?

Interviewee: Initially we did, we approached one store.

Michael: And what did you do? You drove to the store, walked in and said, “Who do we talk to about this?”

Interviewee: Well, we created an information pack which kind of summarized what we were offering, and we went in with it. It had a real catchy graphic on the front page. It had a picture, we actually took a picture. We went out in front of Lowe’s and took a picture of us out in front of it with a tent. We set up a tent out there just to kind of show them what it would look like.

Michael: Right.

Interviewee: We weren’t even in Lowe’s yet.

Michael: Okay. What were they saying? “Hey, what the hell are you guys setting up a tent here for?” No one cared did they?

Interviewee: They didn’t care. They didn’t say anything about that.

Michael: They didn’t even know.

Interviewee: Well, we just kind of wanted to give them a visual of the benefit before we started talking more about the benefits.

Michael: All right, so you set your tent up and then you did a digital photo of it?

Interviewee: Right. We set the tent up and set everything up the way we normally do. We set the stands out there, and the literature, the boards, and then we took a photo of some guy underneath it with a group of people.

Michael: Okay, and then you made color copies of that?

Interviewee: Right, that was the front page, and then there were about two pages of just information that just outlined the benefits. It was all benefit driven.

Michael: Benefits towards Lowe’s?

Interviewee: Towards Lowe’s. How they would benefit from it more than anything else, and then a very small portion of it was talking about the process and our end of it. But most of it was just benefit driven towards the store and providing a repeat customer because we were offering everyone that signed up at the store $20. We were giving them $20 to go back into Lowe’s and spend more money.

Michael: Okay, so let’s talk about what was in it for Lowe’s to let you guys do this.

Interviewee: Well, first of all, they were getting exposure to their location. We had a tent out front, and sometimes we would play music. We would play music, and we had a Dish commercial that we taped that we would run over and over again. It just attracted attention. But, you could see the tent from the road. People driving by could see the tent and our banners from the road.

Michael: How big was the tent?

Interviewee: A 10x10 tent.

Michael: Okay.

Interviewee: Real bright colors with Dish Network logos all over the place.

Michael: Okay, so it looked like there was an event happening.

Interviewee: It was creating excitement. There were people underneath the tent walking around. It helps somebody that was driving by that was thinking about Dish Network, or they’d seen a commercial or ad. It would push them to maybe stop in and get more information.

Michael: What else was in it for Lowe’s?

Interviewee: Well, the gift card was a big thing, because their average cost per sale was about $70 at the time, and we were giving them $20 to come back in. So they knew that there was a good chance that that customer that came back in that store to spend that money and redeem that $20 gift card was going to spend $70…

Michael: All right, back up. What’s this gift card? Do you mean when someone signed up with your Dish Network, they got a $20 gift card to go shop in Lowe’s?

Interviewee: That’s right, for that store only. We were forcing a repeat customer.

Michael: Did you pay for the gift card?

Interviewee: We paid for the gift card.

Michael: So, was that $20 that came off of you $75?

Interviewee: That’s right.

Michael: Okay, so you gave a gift card in the form of a plastic card or a piece of paper, or a coupon or what?

Interviewee: They have their own gift cards that you can just load up with any amount of money that you want.

Michael: Oh, so you bought them and loaded them up.

Interviewee: We bought them and loaded them up.

Michael: So they got 20 free bucks to go spend on Lowe’s.

Interviewee: Yeah, but the average ticket then was $70, so they knew that they were going to get more money out of that than $20 at that store.

Michael: Okay.

Interviewee: Plus we also, in the mailings, we would insert the stores weekly sales.

Michael: What do you mean mailing?

Interviewee: We mailed the cards to the customers with a little thank you letter from Lowe’s and our company.

Michael: Oh, so when they signed up, they didn’t get the card right then and there?

Interviewee: No.

Michael: They got it mailed to them how long after?

Interviewee: Two to four weeks later we would send it out. They really weren’t a customer until they were installed and activated.

Michael: I got you.

Interviewee: We didn’t want to give them a card and then they go home and cancel, then we’re out $20.

Michael: I see. It was almost like a stick letter. It was an incentive for them to go ahead and activate so they can get their $20.

Interviewee: Exactly. Right, and then they would get it in the mail. A lot of times they were surprised to get it. It was like an extra bonus, like, “Oh, I forgot about this. I’ve got $20 to spend at Lowe’s.”

Michael: Right.

Interviewee: Then they would go back in the store. But we also had other information, maybe the stores upcoming sales or other offers, inside the mailing with a thank you letter from Lowe’s and our company too.

Michael: Okay, and who paid for the mailing? You did?

Interviewee: We paid for the mailing, correct.

Michael: And Lowe’s furnished you with an insert that you could put in there?

Interviewee: That’s correct. Or, we would create one and have them authorize it, and then we would use that. So we started off with that one little store and we ended up getting 20 of them.

Michael: Twenty different Lowe’s stores?

Interviewee: Well, let me see. Eighteen, we had eighteen Lowe’s stores. Not all on a given weekend, but we would rotate them around.

Michael: Did you hire employees to handle them?

Interviewee: Yes, I had about five sales people that were out selling at a Lowe’s on a given weekend.

Michael: All right, so let’s talk about what was happening with an average Lowe’s on a Saturday. You’re out there, you’re set up, and you’re selling Dish Network. How many deals were you doing in a day?

Interviewee: In the beginning it was just huge. It was phenomenal. I was averaging over 20 a weekend, myself, personally.

Michael: Twenty a weekend?

Interviewee: A weekend. Twenty sales. The best weekend was 38. I sold 38 doing two days of work.

Michael: All right, so each location, when it was really kicking butt, you were doing maybe about $1,000, and that doesn’t even include the $20 that goes back to Lowe’s; I’ve already taken that off. You were doing about $1,000 gross per location.

Interviewee: Right, some weekends were better, but it was probably averaging close to around $1,200 or $1,300 at that time. Then we got a pay raise. We got bumped up to where I was getting $110 a sale after a while.

Michael: Whoa, okay.

Interviewee: Now I get more than that because I’ve been doing it for quite a while. But yeah, we got bumped up once they saw we were outperforming some of the dealers in Atlanta. We were in the top five of the dealers, just the two of us. We were in the top five of sales for several months. Just us two people.

Michael: That’s great. So at one time, did you have four or five locations going on a weekend?

Interviewee: Yeah, probably the maximum, just we could keep track, we didn’t want to over saturate it and over-stay the welcome, so we would probably have a maximum of probably four locations going on a weekend.

Michael: All right, so you were making - over a weekend, what kind of money were you making?

Interviewee: For a while there when it was really, really hot, I was grossing between $2,000 and $2,500.

Michael: That ain’t bad.

Interviewee: The Sunday was a half a day basically, because we were out there from 12 till 6.

Michael: All right, let me ask you this: did you have some strategies or a system put in place within your booth that helped generate the sale? What happened? You had your booth set up, and as people walked in, did you cat-call them over there, or did they naturally gravitate? Did you have a freebie to get them to fill something out? What kind of things got them to your booth rather than ignoring you and being afraid to ask what’s going on there?

Interviewee: Well, that was part of our selling point to the store. We didn’t want to push it on their customers and we didn’t want to feel like we were intrusive to the customers. That was part of the angle that we went after as far as getting in there. We didn’t approach it that way. Basically, we didn’t really have to. So much now, when I do events now, you have to be a little more aggressive, but back then we had really good signage, we had a lot of information out there for customers, and a lot of times they just come up to us.

Michael: Okay.

Interviewee: Another thing, too, is there were other benefits besides signing up a new customer for the store. There was education for existing customers that had questions.

Michael: Right.

Interviewee: So we served as kind of an information source, if you will, for people that already had Dish that had a question about programming or had a question about their equipment. They had a source that they knew was going to be available to them every weekend where they could actually talk to somebody in person.

Michael: All right, so you ended up with all those Lowe’s, and then did it kind of peter out, or did you find something different to move on to in the relation of events?

Interviewee: Well, we felt we were very fortunate because we were with Lowe’s for about two years, and eventually they changed their policy of allowing people to be out front for insurance regulations. That was another hurdle that we’ve since gotten over, and we’re actually trying to get back into Lowe’s again because they discontinued allowing people out front. We basically were out in front of a major home improvement store for two years straight without paying a dime.

Michael: Yeah, that’s incredible.

Interviewee: We went through the numbers a couple of weeks ago, and we generated about $8,000 in gift cards for that store, for Lowe’s Corporation.

Michael: Yeah, how about Home Depot?

Interviewee: Home Depot? Untouchable.

Michael: You can’t do it?

Interviewee: Yeah, we tried getting into Home Depot several times, it’s not going to happen.

Michael: What areas did you think were going to work that you’ve tried out that just don’t work?

Interviewee: Well, actually I’ll give you a list of places we have been and we’re

currently working: K-Mart’s, we’ve had some K-Mart’s. We still have some K-Mart’s. We’ve been in a couple Wal-Marts, but only a few.

Michael: Back up. How did that go?

Interviewee: Wal-Mart was very good.

Michael: Do they want percentages of sales?

Interviewee: No, it’s the same concept of the $20 gift card for the store.

Michael: Okay.

Interviewee: We’ve never had to pay to be in a location.

Michael: Okay, all right.

Interviewee: It’s always been on working with the gift cards.

Michael: Who do you talk to? Who’s the person you talk to about if you can do this, if someone wanted to do something like this?

Interviewee: Well, a lot of times we’ll go directly to the manager or a regional manager. Some of the problems we’ve had with some of the locations is they really can’t make a decision on a managerial level so they have to go to corporate, and obviously we want to avoid that red tape so we just go to the next one. Because once you go to corporate, it’s a whole different animal, as far as getting approval to be out at a location. So we would try to find locations or different stores that could make the decision.

Michael: Okay, yeah.

Interviewee: You know, they could actually make the decision on whether you could come out or not, and we figured that out real quick that managers were in control. Like K-Mart, the managers can make that decision. Then there are some clothing stores down here called Goodies where the manager all can make - the regional manager can make that decision.

Michael: How did that go, the Goodies?

Interviewee: Goodies was okay, not bad. They’ll produce pretty well. You’re looking for a location that has traffic, essentially. Some produce better than others, so we we’re now at an Office Max which produces okay.

Michael: Okay.

Interviewee: Between 8 and 15 sales a weekend. But the idea is, obviously you want to be somewhere where there’s traffic with the type of product that we have that appeals to pretty much everybody that has a home and watches TV, or a TV in their house.

Michael: Is this the one that Radio Shack sells?

Interviewee: Radio Shack sells - some of them sell Dish and some of them sell DirectTV, so it just depends on which one you go to.

Michael: And is Dish Network still a pretty good product?

Interviewee: I think it’s a great product. I mean, they’ve had the JD Power award two years in a row for customer satisfaction.

Michael: Right, what does it cost someone to get set up with them?

Interviewee: Well, right now you can get up to four receivers installed basically for free.

Michael: What does that mean? What’s a receiver?

Interviewee: A receiver has to be on each TV, because this is a dish signal, unlike cable. Cable is analog and can be split up many times. Digital signal has to have a receiver on each TV that’s receiving the satellite signal so that it can decode it.

Michael: Is the satellite on the roof of your house?

Interviewee: The satellite’s on the roof of the house or the back of the house, normally. It uses the existing wiring that’s already in the house in most cases, so we don’t have to go through and do any drilling of holes in the walls because they can just tap into what’s already there.

Michael: All right, so you set up a dish outside and you put receivers on the TVs, and that’s basically free for all of that?

Interviewee: It’s basically free to get everything set up, pretty much. You pay your monthly rate which can be less than cable now, in most areas.

Michael: Are there contracts?

Interviewee: There’s usually a one year agreement, and then after the year agreement you’re on a month to month. And if you move during the year, they’ll move it for you.

Michael: Are there advantages over cable?

Interviewee: Oh yeah.

Michael: Like what?

Interviewee: Well, first of all you’ve got a better picture quality and sound. It’s all digital, so the quality looks like a DVD movie. If you’re watching a DVD movie, that’s exactly what satellite looks like.

Michael: Right.

Interviewee: Generally, when you’re dealing with the satellite providers, as far as the past, there have been very few price increases. Cable rates, on an average, go up about every six or seven months down here. Dish Network for example has raised their rates $4 in eight years.

Michael: Right.

Interviewee: So there’s not many rate increases, unlike cable. There’s no taxes or junk fees on a satellite product. There’s no franchise fees and all those charges that are associated with cable. There’s a lot more features available. There are a lot of interactive features available that they can basically go through and program certain things to come on and certain things not to come on.

Michael: How about satellite internet connection? What’s going on with that?

Interviewee: You can get that. That’s available too. There’s a high speed internet that’s available.

Michael: Now is high speed internet through satellite available all over the United States or just certain locations?

Interviewee: As long as you can get a signal. As long as you don’t have an obstruction to the southwest sky, you can receive the signal.

Michael: So let me ask you this: my father lives up in the north Georgia mountains, in Blue Ridge, and he’s got a wife who sells insurance, and she can’t live up there because she needs a high speed internet connection, so she’s stuck working out of Atlanta and they commute back and forth to Blue Ridge. Can she access a satellite signal for her computer? Do you put a receiver on the computer, or how does it work?

Interviewee: She sure can. Well it’s a separate dish than what’s used for the television programming. It’s a separate dish and it’s a separate receiver.

Michael: And it goes on the house?

Interviewee: Right.

Michael: And then is there a receiver that goes on her computer.

Interviewee: Yeah, it plugs into the back of the computer.

Michael: And this can definitely be done?

Interviewee: Oh yeah.

Michael: Is it as fast as cable.

Interviewee: Actually, some tests have proven it’s faster than cable. It really depends on the time of day and the traffic that’s present at that time, but a lot of testing has claimed that this is actually faster.

Michael: Can you do that with a laptop without being plugged in? You want to be plugged in, right?

Interviewee: Right. Yeah, you have to be at the source where the satellite is.

Michael: Okay, do you know what that service costs?

Interviewee: It’s fairly expensive. I think there’s a couple of options; different ways you can go with it. Actually, for the internet service, Dish Network, I believe, is no longer offering it because they were working with a third party and they didn’t feel comfortable about the product so they’re revamping it. Right now DirectTV has a better solution for the high speed internet.

Michael: They do? Through satellite?

Interviewee: And actually, we sell DirectTV too, so…

Michael: Okay. What do you think that costs?

Interviewee: Well, to get started, there are two options. One is to pay for the equipment up front, which is about $500 for everything and then you own it.

Michael: Can you buy the equipment used off of eBay.com or something?

Interviewee: I wouldn’t recommend that. It has to be installed by a certified technician that knows how to do it.

Michael: Okay.

Interviewee: Even someone that installs Dish Network or DirectTV just can’t install it. It has to be someone that’s certified to install that particular type of equipment. I’m sure you could probably do that, but I just wouldn’t advise it.

Michael: All right, $500 for the equipment. Then what?

Interviewee: Or, you can pay for it monthly as well. You can pay I think its $99 a month, and you pay “X” amount of months, and then you own the equipment. Then the access fee is between $50 and $60 a month.

Michael: So about $50 or $60 a month and about $500 for the equipment and you’re set.

Interviewee: You can pay it up front or you can pay it off monthly.

Michael: And that will definitely give someone high speed internet access in the mountains?

Interviewee: Right. I mean, it’s a niche market product for someone that has to have high speed for their work and they can’t get cable or they can’t get DSL.

Michael: All right, I’m going to let my dad move about that. Let’s move on. So you did Dish Network, and then did you move into- well, you’re still doing a little bit of Dish Network, right?

Interviewee: Right, we’re still doing Dish now, but we just expanded locations and started experimenting with different locations. Which one’s pulled the best. I’ve actually been consulting with some security companies that are wanting to do this same thing right now.

Michael: Okay.

Interviewee: So this type of venue is not limited to just satellite. I mean, there are a lot of other companies that can benefit from this type of marketing.

Michael: Absolutely. It’s a whole way of selling, this “event selling”. What you’ve got to consult with people is what we’ve been talking about: who to approach, how to approach it, how to set up the deal where they benefit. Right?

Interviewee: Right. I mean, yeah, the process. You basically just give them a blueprint of what we’ve done and what we know works, and it’s shaving off hours and hours of frustration of what doesn’t work.

Michael: What kind of equipment do you need to bring out there? You need a tent.

Interviewee: You need a tent, which you can get. To get started with everything that you need to sell it properly is probably around $600 or $700 for everything.

Michael: What is that going to entail?

Interviewee: Well, that’s going to give you a tent, that’s going to give you signage…

Michael: Where do you get the tent?

Interviewee: A company called E-Z Up.

Michael: E-Z Up?

Interviewee: E-Z Up is a company that will create a tent. That’s what they do, they create this type of big outdoor tents, and they can create one that’s customized with Dish Network logos on it.

Michael: Okay, they’ll put the logos on it?

Interviewee: Right, they’ll do that for you. And the signage and the banners that we recommend somebody use, and some chairs out there: you could probably outfit a really good tent set-up for about $700. There are ways of getting into it for less money as well, but you can buy a tent, a 10x10 tent, for $100 at Costco.

Michael: Right.

Interviewee: Then you can have some banners created and put them on top of the tent. So there are other ways of doing it. If someone doesn’t want to put that much money into it, they can get started for a couple hundred dollars.

Michael: Now have you always gone with a 10x10, or do you recommend anything smaller of bigger?

Interviewee: It just doesn’t have the impact, you know? It doesn’t do as well as the 10x10.

Michael: And what color is your tent?

Interviewee: Black and red. Black, red and white, actually.

Michael: And at the Easy Tent place you can get them in any color?

Interviewee: Right, E-Z Up. It’s called E-Z Up.

Michael: Easy Up. Do they have a website? EZUp.com?

Interviewee: Yes, EZUp.com is the name of the site.

Michael: Okay. What about licenses? Do you have to go get a license to do this?

Interviewee: No. We have liability insurance because some of the locations will want to know if you’re covered if something happens. If the tent blows over, we have liability insurance that covers that, but we also have a method for securing the tent that’s very sound.

Michael: Uh-huh, and tell me a little bit about that.

Interviewee: Well, E-Z Up offers weight bags that can be put on the tent that have been tested and are extremely effective.

Michael: Okay.

Interviewee: We also tether the tent. Like at Lowe’s, for example, we always would tether it to one of the big pillars that they had out front there. So we would hook it up to that, and we didn’t really have any problems. We had a few problems early on, but we figured out a way to make it work.

Michael: Do you have any electricity out there?

Interviewee: You don’t need it. You don’t need it unless you want it. We did some radio remotes with some local radio stations. Once we got into it for a while, Dish Network saw what we were doing and they came in and decided that they would like to have a hand in part of it and they paid for some of the radio remotes with the local stations. There’s usually, a lot of times, on the front of the building they have stuff out front. Like they’ll have a little merry-go-round or certain things that plug into their outlets out front, so there’s usually power available.

Michael: Okay.

Interviewee: Sometimes we would hook up a little system out there, or a TV even, and we would play one of the tapes that shows the benefits of Dish Network and just goes over everything. We had that running constantly.

Michael: Okay. You’ve consistently kept with this because it’s worked for you, right?

Interviewee: Oh yeah. I’ve been making a living doing this. This is what I’ve been doing to make a living. I mean, I have some other businesses that I’m working on now, but I’ve made a living selling Dish Network two days a week for the last for years.

Michael: That’s wonderful.

Interviewee: I mean, literally working two days a week. It’s definitely something that has taken a lot of work to get started and figure out what works and what doesn’t work, but that’s what our plans are now. We’re putting together like a manual on how to operate and how to benefit from this type of marketing.

Michael: An information product on how to make a living two days a week selling through “event selling”.

Interviewee: Right. We’re going to get into the consulting side of it, then some on-site training, so there are a lot of things we plan on doing on the back-end with it, but initially, we’re going to come out with a kind of a turn-key manual with all the forms and everything. All the fliers that we use.

Michael: Now, are you talking about specifically for selling Dish Network?

Interviewee: A lot of literature that we have is catered towards Dish, but like I said earlier, this can be plugged in to pretty much any business. For example, a car dealer. Car dealers, auto dealers really started the whole “Tent Event” marketing type of thing, and really, if you think about it, they have a tent out front, but what are they selling out there? They’re really not selling anything underneath the tent, but the tent is attracting attention to get people to drive up because they think something’s going on. That’s the mentality behind the

tent event: people think there’s a special event going on, and they’ll pull in and stop in and check it out.

Michael: Right.

Interviewee: But an insurance company could have a tent set up out front offering reduced rates to people that buy a car or even to do a test drive, they get a discount.

Michael: Have you ever tried like swap meets? Are there many swap meets in Atlanta at all?

Interviewee: Yeah, I’ve done some swap meets. I’ve done home shows. I’ve done the auto show. These are all venues that work well, too, but they require money up front.

Michael: That’s right, they’re expensive.

Interviewee: Yeah, so you’re paying $1,200 to be in the home show, and you probably will make enough sales to be profitable, so your cost of sale is there, but our goal was to come in and not have any investment in our events and really just concentrate on that area because that’s what we had to do initially.

Michael: Okay. You said you do have to have insurance with some of the locations, but do you have to have a reseller’s license from the county?

Interviewee: No, you do not. Not in these counties in Georgia, you do not.

Michael: Do you have to have a business license, or are you operating under business of Lowe’s or the store that you’re out in front of?

Interviewee: I would recommend somebody that wanted to do it look into the particular licensing in their area and what’s required.

Michael: It’s never been an issue?

Interviewee: I put everything under my company name, or there’s another option. If I company decides to do it, and they obviously have their sales people that are independent contractors underneath them, they would be selling under the company name, but as an independent contractor they would still need to get liability insurance.

Michael: Yeah. What are you doing on all this time off? You’re only working on the weekend.

Interviewee: Really. I tell you, it’s hard because you get a system in place and it’s easy, it is easy to take it easy, but I have other things going on. I have an internet marketing business that I’m working on, and I’m doing consulting now, so I have enough to keep me busy, but I think this is a good opportunity for a lot of people.

Michael: Yeah.

Interviewee: It’s an untapped area. You just don’t see it. I mean, if you think about it, how often do you see this done? It’s just not being done that regularly. There are not many people that know how to do it, or maybe even think about it.

Michael: Exactly.

Interviewee: But it is a good way to generate sales, build a good customer list of people you can sell to again, and basically get started for peanuts.

Michael: It’s almost like you’re taking out a piece of the retail locations - it is like a mini joint venture. You’re leveraging all the customers the store has, and you’re just taking a little space of their location and selling another product, but in a different way.

Interviewee: That’s basically what you’re doing, but there’s a win, win, win for everybody that’s involved in this if it’s done properly. Obviously, it has to be done properly or you get kicked out. There are things that we have learned that you need to do, and these are some of things that I’m going to reveal in the course that I’m writing.

Michael: Tell me one thing that’ll get you kicked out.

Interviewee: Misleading the customer or not sending the $20 gift card, and then having the customer call the store and ask where their $20 gift card is.

Michael: Yeah, that’s not good.

Interviewee: If that happens, then…

Michael: You’re history.

Interviewee: That’s not a good thing to have happen, because the store really does not want to deal with anything from the customer side other than their own products. They don’t want a customer calling them saying, “Hey, where’s my card from Dish Network?” They don’t have time to deal with that. That is one area that we really try to take care of and make sure that it doesn’t happen.

Michael: Right.

Interviewee: We made it very clear that they would be calling us if they had any questions about where the card was.

Michael: Right.

Interviewee: We have a system for getting it out so we know when it was being sent down, to the day, but that’s one big thing, probably. Some things are common sense: just not being professional. Being out front harassing their customers. These are little things that, like I said, are common sense, a lot of it.

Michael: Right.

Interviewee: But there are certain things that are not good to do.

Michael: You’re selling in a way that you have to be there. Now, have you been listening to any of my audio clips, or did you get my CD-ROM or anything?

Interviewee: Yeah, it’s great. It’s excellent, I thought it was great.

Michael: Have you considered taking what you’re selling, which you’re already successful at and that’s just one strategy of selling, and really turning it into a remote control selling process where you don’t even have to be there? Have you considered using maybe voicemail or a direct mail sales letter that does the selling for you directly to the customer by finding maybe a targeted list? Is that something you’re interested in?

Interviewee: Oh yeah, that’s definitely another way to go.

Michael: The bottom line is, its $100 on every sale, right?

Interviewee: Right, yeah. That’s definitely a way to go. I think there’s real value, and just from my experience of doing this, I think there’s real value in, with this type of product, or when you think about it, any type of product, of the education or a face to face meeting can offer. When you’re face to face with a potential customer and you’re addressing issues right there, there’s a benefit to that.

Michael: There is a benefit to that. There is a benefit, but there’s also a negative. The negative is you don’t have the leverage. You can address every issue in a letter, in a brochure, or in an audio recording or in a website in the words that are written there. Those can address every single issue that you can address in front of that person. You can take all these issues while you’re talking to people, go get a device that’ll record the conversation between both of you, just like I’m recording now, and you can have audio clips up on your website or you can send an audio tape of all the issues, “20 or 30 questions people have concerns about Dish Network that you may want to know about,” and send that audio tape out and you don’t have to be there. You know what I’m saying?

Interviewee: Oh yeah. Yeah.

Michael: That can all be done, and that would be pretty exciting because your issues that you’re addressing in your system of selling. The tent isn’t selling it. You’ve found someone who’s interested, but it’s what you say in there and how you answer their questions that gets them to sign up, and that’s what brings in the money, right?

Interviewee: That’s right.

Michael: Well you can do all of that automatically through a letter, through voicemail, through internet, and you just need to find joint venture partners that you can get your sales message, or your audio tape, or your website information to prospects, and that would be pretty exciting, I think.

Interviewee: Yeah, I never really thought about it from that angle. I think that’s a good idea.

Michael: Do you think if you had a chance to talk to current cable subscribers in the Atlanta area that you could sell them on Dish Network?

Interviewee: Oh yeah, I’ve done it many times.

Michael: They haven’t done it because they have questions just like I have. They don’t understand how it works, they don’t understand that the installation is free, they don’t understand how much it costs, and they don’t understand the benefits of the digital signal and all that. And if you could get a list of cable subscribers in the area, you could start doing that through a sales letter. I mean, not a brochure with pretty pictures, that’s interesting too, but with a hard hitting letter or an audio recording on an audio tape or a CD-ROM…

Interviewee: Yeah.

Michael: Imagine mailing 1,000 CD-ROM’s that go over all the benefits of Dish Network and scrapping their cable company. All you’ve got to do is get a CD or an audio tape distributed, or a letter which is nothing but a piece of paper, or a website that just has words on it, and get that message to the people, it’s the same thing and that’s automatic.

Michael: What do they have to do to sign up, just fill out a sort application?

Interviewee: Yeah, either over the phone or a simple little form that takes them three minutes to fill out. Then we put everything in a spreadsheet and we generate another form that we send to Dish Network. You know, their actual form that they want. The sign-up process couldn’t be easier. It’s a no-brainer. And there’s no money paid until they’re installed, watching TV, and they’re happy.

Michael: Right.

Interviewee: That’s another strong point. I use that a lot as a big selling point.

Michael: Yeah, definitely.

Interviewee: Especially when you’re at an event and they don’t know you. But we have the credibility of the location, which helps, too. They know that if somebody’s 20 feet from the front door of Lowe’s, they’re probably going to be a pretty good company.

Michael: What are they paying you, $110?

Interviewee: I get $150 a sale, now.

Michael: One hundred and fifty a sale? You know, you could get – you know what I would do? I would start hiring independent contractors to do telemarketing for you over the phone from all over the country. Do you just want to sell in Georgia?

Interviewee: Well, I thought about that as well. Actually, it has to be local, because we have a local install team that only services this area.

Michael: Okay. You could go onto eLance.com. Have you heard me talk about them?

Interviewee: Oh, yes.

Michael: You could post an ad for a job that says you need people to do some telephone work right from their home. You can go buy a list of cable subscribers in your geographical zip code. Or homeowners: I’m sure most of the homeowners have cable. Wouldn’t you think? What percentage of homes have cable? Do you know?

Interviewee: Probably, in the Atlanta area… It’s up there. It’s probably around 80-85%.

Michael: You could pick some neighborhoods in Atlanta that have money, based on zip codes and locations, and you could have a lady on the phone make 100 phone calls for $70. It’s $7 an hour, so for $70, you could have her on the phone for 10 hours, and all you do is buy the list. It’s probably a compiled list you can get from a list broker. Come up with a good script. Something very similar to what you say when someone comes up to your tent. Say, “Do you have cable?” “Yes.” “How much are you paying?” “I’m paying ‘this’.” “Would you be interested if I could show you a way that I can save you money off your cable bill?” “What is it?” ”It’s called ‘Dish Network’.” And then you just go into the pitch.

Interviewee: Yeah.

Michael: “Why should you be paying a third more with cable when you could have it for less? You could have a better quality picture.” Do they offer a “no risk”, like, if they’re unhappy with it, they get their money back?

Interviewee: Oh, yeah.

Michael: I mean, the whole Idea here is, marketing is the ultimate leverage. Advertising is nothing but salesmanship, and you’ve just got to get that message to as many people as possible for the least amount of money possible. If you had a script where a lady read it, and there are hundreds of people all over the country who are willing to do this right from there house. Thousands and thousands of people that are being laid off, they don’t know what to do. They’d love to talk to you. You could track all their phone calls online, so you could keep track of them. If you go to BigZoo.com, you can pre-pay like $50 worth of long- distance time, and you can give these people an access code number that they can dial from their local area, and you can see their calls in real time. All you do is provide them the names and the phone numbers of the people they’re calling. Now, a lady calling for 10 hours: don’t you think she can maybe land two sales?

Interviewee: Oh, yeah.

Michael: You pay her $70, and you make $300. Any brain-dead person – I have a saying, “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.” Okay? Think what you can do with a skilled sales person. They’re independent contractors, they’re working on their own, and it would take some time. If you can get 10 or 15 people on the phone making 100 calls a day, that’s a lot of calls. Then you’re leveraging. You won’t have to set up at these events. You could teach people how to set up at events, but I think you could dwarf your sales compared to what you’re doing at the events by having people do phone calls for you.

Interviewee: Yeah, I think around here the cost per sale for a print ad is about $200, to get a sale for Dish Network. That’s about the average.

Michael: That’s way high. Whose average is that? Who’s giving you that number, and what did the ad say?

Interviewee: Well, that’s with a lot of feedback from the retailers. That’s what they’re getting, their numbers. It’s a lot harder now to make a sale than it was 6 months ago.

Michael: Well, these guys don’t know what marketing’s about, you know? These guys haven’t had a clue. If you target market with a skilled sales pitch and a skilled script design, all you’re doing is helping the guy save some money. That’s the way you’ve got to look at it.

Interviewee: Right.

Michael: Everyone wants to save money. If you come across a normal person, and you can help them out, you’re going to sell them. Especially if they don’t have to risk anything.

Interviewee: Right.

Michael: I mean, it’s a no-brainer. I’ve got cable right here. I’ve seen Dish Network in the store, at Radio Shack and all that, but I still haven’t the faintest clue about what it is, how it works, or anything until I’ve talked to you, until I got educated.

Interviewee: Really?

Michael: Absolutely. I’ve seen it. My initial thing, I’ll be honest with you, is that I’ve got to go up on my damn roof with a ladder and put this thing on, and I just don’t want to screw with it. That’s why I’ve never looked into it.

Interviewee: That’s probably a lot of people’s perception.

Michael: Of course. They just don’t know. You’ve just got to educate them, and you can educate them whether you have little old ladies calling from their house and educating them or whether you do it in a very effective joint venture campaign. Maybe you could design a flier that says, “If you have cable TV and you’re ready to hit the ceiling because the rates are going up, and you want to save money off your cable TV, call this 800 number for this free recorded message.” Then they can call an 800 number. They’ll call in, you’ll capture their phone number when they call in, and you can have an outgoing message as long as you want. You’d probably do a five minute outgoing message and have a skilled script that says, “If you have cable TV and you think you’re paying too much, this is going to be the most important call you’ve ever heard. Here’s why: I’m sure you’ve seen it at Radio Shack and other retailers. Dish Network. What is Dish Network? Dish Network is a more effective, better quality way, to access programming. Much of the same programming you’re already accessing, but it just costs you less. Cable prices keep going up, up, up, up. You can project in the next five years, your cable bill will be double, but not with Dish Network, because Dish Network…” You know, you just sell them.

Interviewee: Yeah.

Michael: Then, if they’re interested, they’ll leave their name and number, and then you’ll have a qualified person who’s left their name and number. Then you call them back and close the sale.

Interviewee: Or you have independent contractors work on those leads.

Michael: Absolutely. You’ve got enough margin in there to pay these people.

Interviewee: That’s a good idea. Definitely.

Michael: You’re event stuff is great. I mean, it is great. It’s just one system of marketing that’s worked, but what Jay Abraham teaches is, the whole idea is to get multiple pillars, multiple streams of income. Your event selling is great. If you’re ever dead broke and you need to, absolutely. Do it. But this is some of the stuff you should be focusing on, because you’re only two people and you don’t want to start hiring employees, especially setting up at these things. There are some hassles about setting up the event stuff, you know?

Interviewee: Right.

Michael: But if you’re just dealing with people over the phone and data, which is their phone numbers, and you could track their stuff, you just start slow. Have one person working, and believe me, a telemarketer, someone who’s hungry and needs to make money, they can go through the numbers like you wouldn’t believe.

Interviewee: Yeah, I think it could profitable for me.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah, you’ve got the money and the profit to do it. You should invest in getting someone to get on the phone for $7 an hour. Try it for a day, see what they come up with. They’re bound to come up with a couple sales and two or three interested, and a few call backs. I’m telling you, it’ll work.

Interviewee: Yeah, because it’s a product. They basically can get started for zero, really.

Michael: They can get started for zero, that’s right.

Interviewee: So, you’re being commissioned on the one year agreement.

Michael: I don’t think people are stuck in long-term contracts with cable, are they?

Interviewee: Some of them now are requiring a commitment for a year.

Michael: Most of them aren’t.

Interviewee: Most of them aren’t, no.

Michael: When I was selling cable, you know, people are always moving, and I bet you can come up with a list of people who just moved into town. If you could get to these people before they even move into their place and decide they want cable, you want them not to get cable, you want them to get Dish Network.

Interviewee: Right.

Michael: You see, there are all kinds of services. You could work deals where you give the apartment managers… Can you put them in an apartment?

Interviewee: It’s a little harder because they don’t want them installed on the roof or any part of the building, so they have to be on the balcony and that balcony has to have a clear shot. It’s a lot more tricky with an apartment than with a home.

Michael: Okay, so you need single family residences.

Interviewee: That’s the ideal. Usually, it’s about 60% of apartments will be, the term is “treed-out”, which means they can not get a signal because there’s an obstruction.

Michael: All right. You need homes.

Interviewee: Yeah, single family homes and new people that are moving in. There’s program I’m working on now with some new home developments where you actually get in their list. You know, they have a list of utilities?

Michael: Right.

Interviewee: They’ll have like, the power, the phone company, the…

Michael: Yeah. Yeah, that’s right.

Interviewee: …the cable company. And Dish Network is on there. We’re on the list as one of the service providers.

Michael: Here, I’ll give you a great way to get your message to these people very inexpensively, especially the residential areas. Do you live in a house or an apartment, or what?

Interviewee: I live in a house.

Michael: Okay, do you ever get those pizza fliers on your door?

Interviewee: Mmm hmm.

Michael: And the people who do the lawns, they’ll attach something to your front door?

Interviewee: Right.

Michael: Okay, here’s a real effective way: there are services all over Atlanta who deliver these things, okay? What you do is, you take a sales letter or your sales message, like what we were talking about, “Quit getting ripped off by cable. Consider Dish Network and get free installation” or whatever, okay? You take that letter and put it in a white #10 envelope, you close it up and you don’t put anything on it. Then you hire one of these distribution services. Now, I did this. You can get that thing delivered. With the cost of your envelope, and the letter already folded up inside, sealed, and distributed for 10 cents a piece. So you could distribute 1,000 of them for about $100. All you need to do is make one sale, and you’re still making $50. So the flier distribution company comes by and picks up all your envelopes. You have them in a couple of boxes that hold 500 each, and they take the white #10 envelope and drop it right in front of the front door. Nothing on it, okay?

Interviewee: Okay.

Michael: People open the door, and… what would you do if you saw a white envelope with nothing on it on your front doormat?

Interviewee: Pick it up and open it.

Michael: You’re damn right. Have you ever gotten one of those before?

Interviewee: I haven’t.

Michael: There you go.

Interviewee: But I know what I would do. You’d think it’s something important.

Michael: It’ll work. It’ll work, because you can get them distributed by these companies, and the way you find the company is, next time you get a flier on your door, just call the pizza company and say, “Who distributed your flier?” and find out who does it. It’s usually some entrepreneur doing it.

Interviewee: Yeah, that’s a good idea. We also tried something, too - we rolled them up and put a rubber band around them.

Michael: You know what? An envelope would be more effective.

Interviewee: Yeah. It wasn’t great, it was okay. Then, when we had the Goodwill, they did the work for us. They rolled them up for next to nothing.

Michael: Yeah.

Interviewee: Then, we just dropped them out. We just drove around and dropped them out.

Michael: No, people throw that stuff out. You’ve got to get their curiosity going. I mean, a rolled up flier with a rubber band is a flier.

Interviewee: Mmm hmm.

Michael: It’s junk. I mean, I’m not saying its junk, but that’s the first impression I would get.

Interviewee: Right.

Michael: You know what I’m saying?

Interviewee: Yeah, I like the envelope idea better.

Michael: It’ll work. Or, you could just work deals. But the real key is your ad. What are you going to say that’s going to appeal to the people, you know?

Interviewee: Yeah, well that’s kind of what I’ve developed over the years. What buttons to push and certain things to say. I know that a lot of people in this area, for example, are unhappy with their cable. I know that they already are, so I use that to my advantage.

Michael: Yeah.

Interviewee: I use that as part of my selling tool, and I actually get on their side about it.

Michael: Yeah.

Interviewee: I kind of ad fuel to the fire, so to speak, when I’m selling them.

Michael: Yeah.

Interviewee: I make them even more mad at the cable company. You know, I don’t disrespect the cable company, but I agree with them and all that, and then they have more of a tendency to listen to what I’m saying about Dish.

Michael: Right, sounds good. Well look, just keep studying all my audio clips, because I go over some of this same stuff with people, and if you hear it over and over again, there are so many ideas in them. You know, you just got to do it.

Interviewee: Oh yeah, those are excellent. Those clips are great. I’ve gotten a lot of information out of that CD.

Michael: Well, you’re going to be the next one. Can I use this recording to put it up there on the CD?

Interviewee: Sure, yeah. Definitely.

Michael: All right, and if anyone wants to get a course from you on how to set up the events selling, when are you going to have that thing done?

Interviewee: We’re shooting for about the beginning of June.

Michael: All right.

Interviewee: About 30 days, actually. I should say, in about 30 days we’re hoping to get it done.

Michael: What are you going to have in it, do you think? The course.

Interviewee: It’s going to be a complete course. I mean, it’s going to have scripts in there of what to say and even how to handle things over the phone for people that call in over the phone, as well; the outline of how to approach the retailers; how to get set up and the set up process; how the event looks; and it will even go into how to sell it an event. You know, the sales approach at an event is different than selling on the telephone.

Michael: Okay.

Interviewee: It’s a different approach, so we’ll go into that. We’ll have all the fliers that I’ve used and all the forms that I’ve used successfully, that I know that work. We’ll probably have a certificate in there for some consultation that will be included, phone consultation.

Michael: Okay.

Interviewee: Then the back-end is, we’re going to do some on-site stuff. On-site training of like, a staff.

Michael: Okay, that sounds great.

Interviewee: You know, go out and actually train the sales people how to do it.

Michael: So look, if anyone listening to this recording wants to get in touch with you, I’m going to have them email me at Michael@ and then I’ll put them in touch with you.

Interviewee: That sounds great. Great, I hope this information can help some people.

Michael: I’m sure it will. There’s always someone who wants to learn about new stuff, and I think it’s great. It’s something I had no idea about. It’s something I’m aware of, but I never talked to anyone in depth. But, it makes sense and it works, and it’s a great way to market.

Interviewee: Yeah, I think so.

Michael: Well, do you have any other questions you can think of? Anything else you wanted to talk about?

Interviewee: That’s about it. I think the real benefit with this type of marketing is that a business can get their brand name out there in front of a large company like Lowe’s or K-Mart, and they can get serious recognition in a couple of weeks.

Michael: Right.

Interviewee: Just by approaching it the right way. I still think it’s a glorified joint venture, is what it is.

Michael: It really is.

Interviewee: That’s basically what it boils down to and what it is. Obviously it has to be done right. It has to be done the correct way or it’s going to flop. But I think the niche is that it can be done very inexpensively and it’s a part-time venture.

Michael: All right, great. All right buddy, we’ve been talking for about 56 minutes.

Interviewee: All right.

Michael: All right? We got a lot of good information.