The Kevin Fort Project Part One !

The Kevin Fort Project is an ongoing series of audio interviews with new HMA Consultant Mr. Kevin Fort. He has agreed to let me capture his path to becoming a successful HMA Consultant. In this series of calls, you will experience what it's like to start and grow into a successful consultant. You'll hear all the real work challenges, objections and triumphs as it happens. At this same time, you'll hear Richard and myself steering and consulting with Kevin throughout his progress. This is a great interactive way to learn. Enjoy. Part one description below.

Kevin Fort is a fairly new HMA Consultant who I recently called just to see how he was doing and if there was anything I could do to assist him in gearing up for success. I found that, in fact, things were really starting to pick up for Kevin and this was great news!

He had hired a part time telemarketer for a short time to help him to find some prospects that he could follow-up with. I was really impressed with his description of the training program he developed to familiarize his employee with the HMA System and telemarketing in general. It was very thorough and I think that any new HMA Consultant would be interested in Kevin’s methodology. We also discuss a very valuable service that Kevin could subscribe to which would allow him to track and monitor his telemarketer’s activities. This is a good investment for any business that uses telemarketers to generate prospects.

Since Kevin is beginning to meet with prospects to do Opportunity Analyses, he had some questions about how Richard’s total exponential growth examples are calculated and could be explained.

After we had some fun figuring out Richard’s example calculation of exponential growth, I told Kevin about the fantastic sales tool for HMA Consultants that is currently available online.

If you go to http://www.hardtofindseminars.com/Advertising-Secrets.html , you can view an extensive 60-minute presentation of the HMA System that I developed using a role-playing exercise with Richard. In my conversation with Kevin, I explained to him how I could have this presentation customized for him (or any HMA Consultant) at no cost.

Having this all-inclusive presentation customized for you and your business, you can use it in meetings with prospects – or especially if you are talking to a prospect over the phone and want to use the presentation to explain the HMA System and how it can grow any business. Let the presentation make the sale!

Kevin’s positive attitude and excitement about the HMA System will rub off on you so have fun as you listen to this conversation and keep me posted with your success!

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Hi, this is Michael Senoff with HardtoFindSeminars.com and Consulting Secrets. This is the first of a series of audio interviews I’m doing with Kevin Fort. Kevin Fort is a new HMA marketing consultant, and we decided to do these interviews as a way for you, the HMA consultant, to follow along in the progress and to understand what it’s like to start a consulting business. As you listen to these series of recordings, you’ll be able to follow Kevin’s progress and also get additional training, interactive training with myself and with Richard throughout some of the remaining recordings. So, I hope this will be a beneficial learning tool for you. We follow along with Kevin Fort’s progress. He’s certainly doing all the right things to move his consulting business forward. Enjoy!

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Michael: Kevin, it’s Mike Senoff. How are you?

Kevin: Michael, how are you?

Michael: I’m doing really good, and yourself.

Kevin: Not too bad.

Michael: You’ve been back for a while from Japan. Welcome back to the US. How long have you been back now?

Kevin: We got back April 2 nd.

Michael: Not that long. It takes a while to get into it.

Kevin: It does. I miss the good stuff over there and diving.

Michael: Did you do a lot of diving there?

Kevin: I was a scuba instructor over there.

Michael: Oh, you were a scuba instructor in Okinawa.

Kevin: Yeah, that was actually my first business.

Michael: Oh, no kidding. That was your business?

Kevin: That was my business.

Michael: Oh, that’s why the logo you did – wasn’t that kind of related?

Kevin: Yes. I am very, very big into the Tiki. I spent a lot of time studying Polynesian culture and the meaning for the logo I was able to tie a lot of the things into my personality, how I approach business.

Michael: Well, that’s good. I gave you some feedback on it. It wasn’t the most positive feedback, but I can relate to that. That’s fine.

Kevin: It’s always welcome.

Michael: I don’t even really know much about Tiki, but in college I had a tie-dyed t-shirt company where I manufactured tie-dyed T-shirts and it was called, “Tiki Tie-Dye” believe it or not.

Kevin: Really?

Michael: Yeah.

Kevin: That’s awesome.

Michael: I’ll send you a link on my website on the bio.

Kevin: I read that, your first company was the shirts.

Michael: Yeah, it was one of my businesses in college. Were you the scuba instructor for a lot of the people training in the army?

Kevin: Well, I dealt specifically with combat diving. I had a bunch of combat divers come through become combat diver certification can not be translated into the civilian world. So, I did run a lot of those combat divers through my program.

Michael: So, this was a business for profit.

Kevin: A business for profit.

Michael: Did it go good?

Kevin: I started it in April of ’04, and I ran in until October. Unfortunately, I ended up having to report a $36,000 loss for my business due to weather because we got slammed with sixteen typhoons from June until the middle part of August. So, I actually did any diving done for three months.

Michael: I guess you are pretty reliant on the weather. It is a great business. I got certified in college I think PADI.

Kevin: PADI.

Michael: PADI, yeah. My wife was real into diving. Actually we went together down to Cazumel, and she’s got a good friend who has a dive operation. So, I did some diving out there, but since then, not much since I’ve had kids and stuff.

Kevin: Yeah, it’s tough when you have the family.

Michael: So, tell me, you got an opportunity analysis tomorrow. What’s going on?

Kevin: Things are really starting to pick up. I turned my telemarketer lose. I let her run for about a week and a half. I sat down and provided her with about three days of in-depth training on the program and what I wanted her to do.

Michael: How did you find her?

Kevin: She’s actually my cousin. She’s very well versed in communications. She speaks very well. She carries herself very well.

Michael: How old is she?

Kevin: She is 15.

Michael: That is awesome.

Kevin: Unfortunately, I had to let her go. She took off on me Thursday, went down to California to do some surfing. It wasn’t the issue that I had. I was a little disappointed that she took off and didn’t let me know where she was going.

Michael: Tell me how did you train her? Did you let her listen to some of the audio up on the site?

Kevin: I didn’t have her listen to it, but I did print out all the transcripts.

Michael: Okay.

Kevin: And, I printed out three different transcripts. The main one that I taught her off of, and then I used for my script was the one from Steve, Richard’s tele-seller, and then I walked her through the opportunity analysis, and basically showed her what it is that I do, and then I gave her some history and some background on the actual HMA system itself.

We walked through about three different days, and then at the end of the third day, I arranged to have a mock training for her where she called three different numbers and I had three different people answer and gave them the specific roles to play – business owners – and we did a role play situation for her.

It didn’t turn out too bad. She seemed to handle it okay. She was getting what I wanted her to say out, but I could definitely tell there was a lack of comfort level there. Whether they started getting to the off the wall questions or she just wasn’t getting across to business owners, just wasn’t understanding what she should sell them. She didn’t have that comfort level there in being able to explain that.

Michael: So, did she do any of it for real with some cold prospects?

Kevin: Yes, she made about twenty different calls, I think, what I estimated. Actually, I have her call log. I can give you an actual number.

Michael: Oh, yeah, I’d love to hear it.

Kevin: About 39.

Michael: Thirty-nine calls? Did you buy leads from InfoUSA?

Kevin: I bought a list of 504 names.

Michael: Okay, good job. I think you inquired about getting thousands of them. I said don’t get thousands of them, just get a few to start.

Kevin: I did. It turned out to be 504 names, 374 is what we actually came up with that were usable. We got rid of the franchises and things like that.

Michael: And, you got it right within your geographical area?

Kevin: Yes, twenty miles surrounding my zip code.

Michael: Okay, excellent, and so she did about 36 calls, and what happened?

Kevin: She was able to turn about four of them to semi-warm prospects. In fact, those four I’m still waiting to hear back from. She said they sounded semi-positive. They were interested, but they either didn’t have the time right now or whatever the situation was. She left my contact information. We’re just kind of waiting to hear back from those folks. I figured if I don’t hear from them within a month, month and a half, then I’ll probably reattack on those.

Michael: I wouldn’t wait a month and a half. If they were semi-warm, Kevin, you need to hustle up and call them tomorrow.

Kevin: That soon you think?

Michael: Yes, absolutely. Look, if they were semi-warm, and you call them tomorrow, you’re not going to bother them. Did she write down a reason why?

Kevin: In the call log, I had her list all the business names, the owners names, the date she called, the time she called, so I can track how much she was doing within a day, and then I had a comment section that I had her just basically summarizing telephone calls.

Michael: So, what’s in the comment section of those four semi-warm prospects?

Kevin: Different responses – anything from “already has a consultant”, and a bonding solutions guy who deals with bonds and insurance, and he wanted me to send him something by mail. So, I typed up a letter, just a one-page, just real easy on the eye, something eye catching and I shot that out to him in the mail.

She grabbed another one. It was an apartment complex that I’m actually going to be doing on Monday. I’m going to go do an opportunity analysis on them.

Michael: Who are you doing it for, the owner?

Kevin: I’m doing it for the owner. She was able to contact the manager of the apartment complex, and then through that, I was able to get actually a hold of the owner of the apartment complex, and they’re hurting. They’re only fifteen percent occupancy in this apartment complex.

Michael: Only fifteen percent occupancy?

Kevin: Yes.

Michael: How much time were you able to talk to him initially, not that much, just a little bit?

Kevin: I talked to her yesterday, and I was only able to get about five minutes of her time. She was a little distraught, and I could tell she was wanting me to come and help her because it sounded like she was ready to go into tears with this property.

Michael: Do you know how many units it was?

Kevin: She didn’t tell me how many. I’m actually going to do some research on Friday. I’m going to actually go to the apartment and just pretend like I’m an interested client and talk through, give me their sales pitch, and try and get some background information from this place.

Michael: Okay, that’s great. That will be good practice and may turn into a client. How long did it take for her to do the 36 calls?

Kevin: She started making the calls on the 13 th of June, and I had her stop on the 20 th.

Michael: So, she was working maybe an hour a day or a couple of hours a day.

Kevin: I told her max of four hours a day, two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon.

Michael: All right, so she only did 36 calls. It took her how many days to do that?

Kevin: I think she only put in about four days of actual calling.

Michael: And, you’ve got 36. So, for every 30 minutes she made a call basically.

Kevin: Right.

Michael: All right, that’s fine. It’s a little slow, but that’s fine. What did you pay her per hour?

Kevin: Seven dollars an hour.

Michael: So, sixteen hours times seven dollars, $112, you get four interested parties, and maybe you can get a client out of one of those for a hundred bucks. That’s fine. Those numbers are good, and especially for someone who’s never done phone calls.

You can see how this goes, and you may even consider getting a telemarketer with a little more experience. You can possibly use the method I show you on putting it up on Elance because Elance has a telemarketing section. There are telemarketers all over the country who can do this for you from their phone, and there’s a training in there where I show you how to give them a calling card number through an Internet long distance service provider.

So, you give them a calling card number. Let’s say I found you on Elance, and Kevin Fort’s going to be my telemarketer. You’re in Arizona. I’m in San Diego. I can go online to this long distance calling card company, and I can program your phone number that you’ll be making the calls from whether it’s your cell phone or whether it’s your home phone number, and then you’ll have just a simple four or five digit code and then you dial the area code and number. All those calls are billed to me, and I can watch you making the calls in real time online. So, I can track and know you’re actually working because I’m paying you by the hour. That’s beautiful.

They don’t have to be local. They can be anywhere in the country doing this for you, and the company is in the list of contacts and I can point you out to where it is. I’ll walk you through a training to show you over all the years all the projects I have used with Elance. It’s very easy to find someone to do that.

Another way is to put a simple ad in the Sunday paper looking for experienced telemarketers, people who can follow directions and talk. You can do it that way, too, and get someone local if you want to do the training.

Kevin: Okay.

Michael: But, that’s fine. I mean, you heard the Sam Bowman interview how he did it, and that’s the way to go. So, you have this opportunity analysis, and you’re a little confused on the mathematic stuff?

Kevin: Yes, on the math stuff, I didn’t really catch it really good when I was actually taking the training in Japan and with the moving and everything, I boxed everything up and I don’t have my materials with me right now. I worked through this about two hours a day trying to get the numbers right on the Growth Matrix.

Michael: Okay, now do you remember the PowerPoint presentation that I have up there for you with Richard taking me through that whole thing? Did you ever watch that?

Kevin: I don’t think I did.

Michael: Oh man, do you have your computer there? Are you online now?

Kevin: I’m online.

Michael: You are online?

Kevin: Yes, I am.

Michael: I’m going to email you a link. I’m going to explain it. This can do two things for you. I set this page up – this is actually for the HMA consultants. This is a way you can actually do some remote control selling, some automatic selling, and it’s a generic page with a generic presentation that you can send anybody to.

So, let’s say you have your telemarketer on the phone and they want to see a presentation, and they’re hot for this information or you want to give away a free marketing presentation to a group of people or whatever. This allows someone to go through a sixty minute advertising and marketing strategy workshop from America’s number one strategic advertising and marketing consultant, i.e.; Richard, “How to Uncover a Million Dollars or More in New Found Sales from Your Business in the Next 60-90 Days”, and it’s an incredible PowerPoint presentation.

It’s me and Richard role playing and him taking me through an entire presentation. Now, this articulate thing, this is fantastic, and if you want as part of the package, I’ll customize this thing for you.

Let me just show you a couple of things. See, we could put your picture up there with your name, your company name. I can customize this whole thing. You can write your own bio. I’ll include your bio. You have your own email address right there.

These are PDF files. So, you have all those reprint rights to those files, and you have them in Microsoft Word where you’ll take out my header, and you’ll put your own header in there. So, anyone who downloads your free reports here, it leads them back to you. Are you with me?

Kevin: I’m with you.

Michael: I have five different reports, “How to Double Your Business in Ninety Days”, “How to Make Your Yellow Page Ads Pull Like Crazy”, “Fifty-One Quick Fix Marketing Strategies” – you have all these in Microsoft Word, and then you change the headers out to have it come back to you, and then you turn them into PDFs.

So, you would choose what reports you want up here, and send them to me, and I’ll have my girl customize this entire thing for you. Okay?

Kevin: Okay.

Michael: This is just a sweet piece of software. Now, you can watch the presentation on your on. One thing you can do actually, if you’re doing a consult over the phone, and let’s say you have a client that’s not in your area. You can just have them pull this thing, and be on the phone with them and just walk them through this presentation while you guys are on the phone, and let Richard do all the selling. It’s really incredible.

This is Richard going through the entire system. This will be perfect for you to go through even as a training. You’ll watch him explain the three ways for exponential growth, and you’ll see the graphs and the numbers right there for you, okay?

Kevin: Okay. Now, this part of the matrix, I’m extremely comfortable with, but after he explains doing all three, and then we get the net growth – right at that point where he gets the net growth. I’m lost. Where does he get that?

Michael: I’ve got to be honest with you. I suck at the math, too, and when I went through the opportunity analysis, this was one of the questions I had with him about the numbers.

First of all, I’ll tell you what he said, and it really makes sense because me sitting there going through an opportunity analysis with these numbers, that’s not my style. I’m not a numbers guy. This is a part of the opportunity analysis that is beneficial for some of these number cruncher type people.

See, if you’re doing your job right in the opportunity analysis, and you’re asking the right questions or you’re really listening and finding out where their hidden marketing assets are and as you’re going through that opportunity analysis, you’re asking, “Do you see where the money is?” or “Do you see how that could make you a lot of money, Mr. Prospect?” or “Do you see how that could save you money?”, as you’re going through each section.

If you’re doing that right all the way through, you may not even have to get into these numbers, if it’s obvious. But, maybe for a prospect who is a numbers guy whether it’s an accountant, there are people like that who are real numbers people, this is just an added demonstration or a visual that can help seal the deal.

Kevin: I just looked at it as “this is how I justify my expenses, and what they can expect to invest into the system.”

Michael: Yeah, too. He’s saying most businesses are using only one pillar to grow their business. So, in this example, they’re growing twenty percent. So, most businesses you encounter – let’s say the apartment lady, the only way she’s getting her apartments filled up is if she’s running classified ads. That’s her only form, her only pillar for getting new renters to rent her apartments. You see?

So, let’s say that’s her only method. She’s got one pillar. So, the whole idea is you’re going to show them how to grow their business exponentially using multiple pillars without spending any more money on advertising. So, as you’re discovering and uncovering hidden marketing assets, ways to get more people into her apartments maybe by implementing a referral system, where implementing a referral system doesn’t require her to spend more money in the newspaper to advertise. Do you see what I’m saying?

Kevin: Correct.

Michael: So, that’s another pillar that you include. And, let’s say you show her another pillar by upselling which doesn’t cost any more money, it’s just something you implement or another pillar, developing a USP, giving her renters a real reason why they want to rent her apartment. These are all ways that she can get more renters in her complex without spending additional money on advertising.

Now, the way you’re justifying it and you’re demonstrating to her, is to show her that these ways that you’re going to implement in her business getting her apartments rented out and full occupancy, that they’re not going to cost her anymore money on advertising, but the combination of all three or four of them can give her exponential growth.

So, I think whatever that number is, is showing her and demonstrating the rate of growth that she can increase or how fast she can fill that apartment out. It just shows her numbers compared to what she’s doing. She’s only spending money on advertising, classified, to get people in there which is an expense. You’re demonstrating that you’re going to bring in no-cost or very low-cost strategies and the power of them combined are exponential. Does that make sense?

Kevin: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. It’s interesting. I was just trying to practice situations on myself on the last portion of that opportunity analysis when you actually start getting into the growth module.

Michael: Yeah, when you’ve got to put the numbers all in yourself.

Kevin: Right, I practiced that about three or four different times. One of the times I practiced it, I did a twenty percent growth objective, and now I’m coming up with the exact same 72.8 percent. What I did was divide the gross sales by the first column of what they’re actually doing now. I divided the 69,120 by the forty and then that brings you up with 1.728

Michael: So, that works out?

Kevin: You think a guy who majored in accounting would know how to do this.

Michael: I can’t stand the numbers. It totally confuses me. I rarely focus on them. How is he coming up with it? He’s coming up with the combination of all three of them growing together.

Kevin: The way I’m thinking the math’s being done, you have all three. You take the gross sales there, the 69,120, and I divide that by the 40,000 because what he’s doing now, we’re trying to show him the actual growth achieved. So, if you can go over to gross sales under what he’s doing now.

Michael: Let’s look at the now column. He’s got 200 prospects, closing ratio 20 percent, number of customers 40, average per customer, that’s not going to give you a growth, that’s just going to give you gross sales. And, you’ve got pillar one, pillar two, pillar three – okay, you’ve got 240 prospects, your closing ration is 24 percent, and you have your total gross sales. So, it shows you the increase compared to just one pillar.

Kevin: Right.

Michael: Okay, that’s powerful. We didn’t do this on this graph, but imagine if you did two additional columns with different pillars showing small growth and what the number would be.

Kevin: He talks about the three main ways to grow your business, either increase your prospects, increase the conversion ratio of prospects to customers, or you increase the average customer worth. If there were other pillars that I could think of to generate cash flow for a business, then you could include those in the additional pillars, your growth potential would be unlimited.

Michael: Now, remember, in opportunity analysis, there’s a little cheat sheet that shows you some expected growth. I’d have to pull it up to see it, but on that opportunity analysis, it shows you some numbers and percentage.

Going through this entire presentation, it’s him giving the entire thing, even in more detail than that opportunity analysis. This would be great practice for you to go through and a great tool – I have this up on my website where I let people watch it for free.

I got an email from someone today.

Kevin: For more information.

Michael: So, you give them an invitation right there. This is a very thorough, great presentation. You may have been getting some of the email, and I had a contest. I had a ton of people on my list review this thing and give me feedback, and then based on all the feedback from the people; I implemented even more changes into this thing.

This is automatic selling at its best. I mean, if Kevin Fort doesn’t want to get out there doing these opportunity analysis, I’ll give you one idea, and I just haven’t gotten off my ass and done it because I’ve got so many other things to do. You can customize this presentation for you which is Richard, the positioned expert giving an entire presentation on how to grow your business which is very thorough, and once you go through it, you’ll see how thorough it is.

You can go online to PayPal. You know what PayPal is, right?

Kevin: Correct.

Michael: You can go to their PayPal shops. They have like forty million PayPal shops. So, let’s say for example, you find a company that sells boxes. Okay, let’s say they sell packaging material for CD Roms or DVD cases, whatever. Most of these customers are buying the stuff on eBay. If you know someone has a PayPal account, you can look at their PayPal feedback rating. There’s a number that shows you how many PayPal transactions they’ve done, and you look for the ones in the multiple thousands. There’s some with twenty, thirty, forty, fifty thousand. Some of these power sellers, that are moving tons and tons volume.

Well, many of these PayPal owners don’t even realize that in their PayPal account, they have access to their entire database. You can go to the history section of your PayPal account and download an Excel file of every single customer who’s bought from you. You have their email address. You have their first and last name, mailing address, all in that database.

Now, you can approach someone with a list like that and ask them how would they like to grow their business by educating their customers, by giving their customers some marketing tools that can increase their business.

So, let’s say the guy’s selling boxes, and pretty much anyone buying boxes is running a business. So, if you can show the 20,000 box buyers how to grow their business, that’s going to be good for the guy who’s manufacturing the boxes. Do you see?

Kevin: Right.

Michael: And, you can approach him and show him the presentation and say, “This is what I’d like to do. I would like you to send an email out to your list.” Most likely, he doesn’t even know that he has the entire list in a database until you tell him, “And, you would like to buy his customers something of real value as a way for thanking them for buying boxes from them, or buying CD cases, or buying whatever.”

You set it to the market, and you’d like to invite them to a $500 consultation on how to grow their business, and then you have a page just like the one I sent you to, which we’ll customize for you. You have your articulate presentation, your contact information, and that email goes out to that entire customer list where those buyers of boxes are invited to sit in on this presentation.

You have all these people go through this presentation, and you could be putting on an opportunity analysis, having Richard do it for you, and have all the people who filter through who are interested come back to you.

Just having a girl doing sixteen hours of nothing buy trying to make this offer to set up this win-win-win situation, that could be staggering.

Kevin: It would be unreal.

Michael: Yeah, it’s a great tool, all automatic, all online, all put together. You watch this thing, go through this whole thing and let me know what you think.

Kevin: Okay. I will look over this, but I can tell you, this is an extremely well organized. I have to hand it to you. I don’t know how you keep yourself so organized with everything you have, seminars, your Audio Institute. You’re a phenomenal guy.

Michael: Thank you. It is crazy. I have to tell you. A lot of late nights – I know where everything is. The Hard to Find Ads, I haven’t touched that thing.

Kevin: There’s a lot of good information out there. I’ve used a lot of it. I’ve spent probably half a day Sunday burning through some of those ads because I find with the Chamber of Commerce here for Mesa, they gave me an eighth page free ad to run in the Sunday paper. So, I did up my first ad, and I used that website to do a lot of the research and find things. I also used it to create the ads that’s going out not this Sunday, but the following Sunday for a business that my father and I started when we got back – a painting and remodeling business.

Michael: Okay, good job. Yeah, there’s some great old paint ads. Did you see those old paint ads?

Kevin: They’re awesome.

Michael: Those all came from a Reader’s Digest. The story is I was on eBay. A guy was selling an entire collection of Reader’s Digest magazines from the 1920s all the way up to the 60s or 70s, and I bought them all for about $600, and I just went through every one of them, pulled out all the great ads. They didn’t even carry advertising until 1956 was the very first year that they accepted advertising in the Reader’s Digest, and they were the largest publication at the time.

There’s a guy named Bruce Barton. Have you ever heard of him?

Kevin: I haven’t.

Michael: Bruce Barton was a famous, famous ad guy, and I had heard about him through this guy named Joe Vitale. Have you heard of Joe Vitale?

Kevin: I’ve heard the name.

Michael: He’s a copywriter, and he had done a whole book about this great adman Bruce Barton, and I was just amazed. I was flipping through this 1956 Reader’s Digest, and it was Bruce Barton, this great adman, who’s obviously dead by now and long forgotten, and him introducing the power of advertising and how Reader’s Digest was now going to accept advertising, and that Reader’s Digest put a lot of your companies on the map.

I was listening to someone talk about one of these steak seasonings, I remember that ad is in that collection and that ad from the Reader’s Digest just put that company on the map. It’s amazing.

Kevin: That’s awesome.

Michael: Those are some great ads, Reader’s Digest. Well, I’ll have more up there as well soon. Look, I want you to go out and get a client. I wouldn’t be so passive about calling these people back. If they’re hot, they’re hot. Like your girl, she may be perfect. You don’t really know if she has any money, but go look at his practice. Take him through the opportunity analysis and see what happens, and ask for a referral. As long as you’re out there, you’ll do fine.

Kevin: Well, I know my client tomorrow that I’ve got the appointment with, a musical instrument store and they also do references, and when I called there today, I actually I was going to let you know. I’ve made 36 calls myself, and I started Friday. I call for an hour, and then I called for about an hour and a half today. And, within those two and a half hours, I’ve been able to nick out about 36 calls myself. Out of that, that’s actually where I’ve gotten four or five of my warm calls now that I’ve got going, but today I wanted to tell you it.

I know I’m not going to get a whole lot of her. I’m not in it for that. I’m just excited to help them. It’s two little old ladies that are running the instrument store. When I called her today, she really wasn’t grasping what I was trying to explain to her. I was able to reword it the right way. She caught it and she says, “You know. I don’t see a reason that we want to do that. We’re in the process of debating whether we want to sell or not.” And, I said, “Well, can I ask why?” She says, “It’s just not profitable to us anymore.”

Right there, I saw the bait, and I took it.

Michael: What did you say?

Kevin: I said, “Honestly, let me tell you what I’d like to do.” I said, “I’d like to see if I can come in and save the business for you. Free of charge, I’d like to come in and offer my opportunity analysis which I do in the first place,” and I said, “I’d like to see if there’s some things that we can dissect out of the business, find some of those hidden assets, and see if we can leverage those to start turning them into profit centers for you.”

And, she says, “Well, how much is this going to cost me?” I said, “Well, as of right now, nothing.” I said, “Let’s see what we can do for you, and I’ll come back and provide you something in writing showing you what I think will work for you. I’ll make sure you guys can handle the type of growth that we can project, and we’ll go from there.” And, I’m excited about this.

Michael: That will be great. It will be great practice. You may find some assets. They may have a great customer list. I mean, there’s all kinds of things. Please, let me know about that.

Kevin: Definitely.

Michael: So, you’re doing the calls yourself. You’re a lot more comfortable doing it. You’ve got the confidence.

Kevin: I’m extremely confident making the calls. I’m comfortable.

Michael: You sound good on the phone, definitely.

Kevin: I wish I knew how Stephanie was doing. That was the girl that I hired to do out because a lot of the ones that she got back were no’s, and to be honest with you, I’ve only gotten two no’s. It was a specific, “No, we’re not going to do it”, and both of those reasons was one of them was a landscaping business, and when I finally got through to the owner of the business, and I started explaining the system he said, “This is all elementary. That’s all stuff that we did just to get to where we’re at.” And, I said, “Well, you’re doing well then.” He says, “We’re grossing over 30 million a year in sales.” I said, “Outstanding, so you guys know exactly what I’m talking about.” And, he congratulated me. He said, “I really admire that there’s somebody out there trying to sell a marketing system that’s worth something.” I said, “Well, it’s not just me.” And, I told him about Richard, about you.

So, that was the first one, and then the other one was the apartment complex that I got, and she said, “Well, you know we’re part of a larger corporation. You have to contact them.”

Michael: I did an hour of nothing but calling myself. I wasn’t using Steve’s thing. I was just basically saying, “I’d like to show you how to grow your business without spending anymore money on advertising. Would you be interested?”

Kevin: I listened to that, and I’ve actually found that just calling them up and having a casual conversation with them opposed to trying to go through a sales pitch is extremely effective.

Michael: Yeah, forget the sales pitch stuff.

Kevin: Just let them know that you’re there. I’ve got something, and this is why I think it can help you, but keep it as more of a casual conversation.

Michael: Steve and Richard, they’re just two people. That’s just one way of doing it – calling someone up and you saw that the people I’ve talked to, most of them were pretty friendly. Some people were busy, and they didn’t have time to talk, but people are generally open especially business owners.

Kevin: Exactly.

Michael: They’re all in the same boat.

Kevin: I actually find that I have a lot of fun making the phone calls.

Michael: Yeah, it’s interesting.

Kevin: It’s not something that I want to do forever. It definitely gives me good experience with what I’m dealing with and understanding where my telemarketers are coming from, and what they can expect if and when I hire another one. Now, I’m just interested in getting out there and seeing what I can actually do with the system.

Michael: Good job. All right, call me anytime. I’d be glad to hash things over with you and help you out.

Kevin: Okay, I’ll look over this information gave me.

Michael: Yeah, go through this whole presentation.

Kevin: Okay, I really appreciate you calling.

Michael: Talk to you later.

That’s the end of this first part with Kevin Fort. Please continue to the second in the series of consulting interviews and recordings with Kevin Fort to follow along with his progress on how he’s building his consulting practice.