How I Accidentally Creating A Sales Force That Doubled My Company, All Without Spending a Dime, And You Can Too! (Pt1)
I want to share this with you so you can model it to scale your own business. Before I get started, I should let you know that perfecting this was not easy.
It wasn’t intuitive, and I made a lot of mistakes along the way, some of which almost shattered my company.
So with your permission, I want to be 100% transparent with you so you fully understand why this worked for me and how it can work for you, too.
Will You Qualify To Do This?
You can eliminate the risks I faced because what I’m going to share can help you get what many think sounds too good to be true.
I want to help you get more revenue while eliminating uneven cash flow.
This very same process happens to ensure you dominate your competitors, add a completely new sales channel and provide better support to your clients than you’ve ever imagined.
Please Pay Attention Because I Promise To Leave Nothing Out.
My hope is that by reading this, you will do one thing new that you have not done before to make BIG Positive Changes in your business this quarter, this month and forever after.
Let’s start with some basic assumptions: Nothing in life comes without consequences.
Sometimes the consequences are wonderful and sometimes… not so much.
Failure Can Be the Gateway to Success, but ONLY IF You DON’T Give Up.
My PowerTribes Client Certification program is a result of exactly that; I had to fail first, then go through a painful recovery and finally succeeded after figuring it out.
When you solve basic cash flow and revenue issues, you’ll feel more at peace, and have more time for your family and friends.
“Having Certified Consultants paying you regularly allows you to know with certainty, that you will enjoy more freedom, wealth and family time!”
Whatever it was that you first thought your business would provide for you...
Certification is an accelerator.
If you want the same things I wanted when I did this, then you can take the same actions I did by understanding exactly how Certification can work for you.
Who I am:
I built Timeslips Corp from scratch starting with $5,000, a great partner and a relentless desire to take control of my life and build a great company.
On the way, I was nominated twice for INC Magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year.
I won “Best Entrepreneur” awarded by The National Association of Legal Vendors
I went on to join Chet Holmes and Tony Robbins as the CEO of Business Breakthroughs, International. Tony Robbins and I worked together for four years as partners, building that company to $25M in sales, before the untimely death of Chet Holmes.
Then, I wrote The Invisible Organization, which became an Amazon Best Seller. It’s all about how I ran a completely virtual organization with nearly 300 staff, all from my home office, and how others can do the same.
So that’s what I’ve done. Now…
Let’s go back in time; to see just how our growing up years provides both the inspiration and the obstacles we must overcome to be successful in life.
Like you, I Was No Stranger to Struggling; My Home Life Was Not Perfect…
I grew up on a peninsula in Brooklyn, NY called Manhattan Beach.
My mom was very loving, but she was a screamer.
She liked to yell at us kids while my dad ignored most of what was happening in the house.
He worked hard at a job he silently hated, but that’s how life works sometimes… until something changes.
He was raised to focus on money, and that was his driving life force.
It’s no wonder I had the intensity of focus on money that I did earlier in life.
My grade school friends were larger and stronger than I was. THEY were picked for teams and left me for last.
Growing up, I realized that I was not socially adept. I was a bit of an outcast, and I felt that way. I turned to music and my electronics hobby to occupy my time.
As a kid, I built all kinds of things; I built a simulated house at the age of 10. It had lights, a doorbell, an elevator, several fans and even a security system all built from a shipping carton and some parts from the hardware store.
That may not sound like much, but I was interviewed for General Electric’s corporate magazine with photos of my little house. They thought it was a big deal.
My mind was always working; I was always planning a project or reading catalogs about electronic parts to see what I could use in my constructions.
I guess I was a little weird.
Then one Sunday morning, my dad woke me up and offered to buy me the electric guitar I had wanted for a long time.
A few hours later, as I sat marveling at my new instrument.
Then I heard a commotion going on in the front of the house.
It was my dad with a suitcase, leaving, while my sister sobbed and sobbed.
After 14 years of marriage, my mom asked my dad to leave on that Sunday afternoon.
My sister and I knew something was up because for weeks before it happened, our parents told us they loved us a lot more than usual.
That was the end of our family, as we knew it. My mom with no education, my dad gone, my sister and our dog Scotty left to fend mostly for ourselves.
I watched as my mom, who tried to get child support and alimony for her 14-year-old son (me) and my 11-year-old sister, while she struggled to keep up the house.
She went to work in an office where she was abused verbally and worse.
But she didn’t care. She would do anything for us kids. She fought through that period of her life, of our lives together and made it work.
As a teenager, I was very angry with my dad. How could he just walk away?
Sure, we saw him once a week and every other weekend, but we were no longer a family.
Without realizing it, this time of my life set the emotional stage for what would come to be my intense desire to NEVER to allow my family to struggle for anything.
So I did what a lot of us kids were doing back then — I got involved with music.
And drugs.
I formed a band called “Absolutely Free” named after my rock hero: Frank Zappa.
We played a lot of sweet sixteens’ and frat parties; we once played for the Democratic Convention in NYC on a party boat.
We were having fun, and as the lead guitar player and manager, I learned some of the most important business lessons a kid could about delivering a quality product, marketing, testimonials and market-based pricing.
But more on that another time.
One day, I wanted to get stoned, but there was no weed available, so I accepted a free sample of something called smack.
Yep, heroin.
You know what they say, “the first one’s free, kid.”
I was just 16 years old and it was the beginning of a journey that I had no idea would eventually land me in a locked room with only one way out.
I became a casual user, but it was enough to pick up an addiction.
Then One Day, My Life Changed Forever.
I had a glassine bag of heroin in my wallet. I waited for everyone to be out of the house after band practice, so I could get high.
I pulled out that little bag of white powder, I placed it in the bent spoon stolen from my mom’s kitchen, I lit the match and watched it boil.
I drew it up into the syringe, slowing pulling it in, making sure not to spill.
I was just about to inject myself with the needle when the phone rang.
I picked up the phone: “Hello? Hello?”
There was no one there.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
So I hung up but when I went back to the needle, I saw the entire syringe was gelled solid.
At first, I was angry for a split second, then the realization that changed my life forever hit me right between the eyes.
You see, that phone call from "no one" stopped me from injecting myself with a cocktail that would have killed me in about 45 seconds.
That phone call saved my life.
I dropped the syringe and began to sob.
I suddenly realized that I had been given a second chance.
At 16 years old, I realized that I could never be a junkie and waste my life that way.
I Knew My Life Would Have a Higher Purpose; at That Moment I Stopped Using.
I learned the hard way that sometimes there’s a fork in the road, and if you don’t pay attention, you can hit a brick wall or worse.
I was paying attention now. I was done with hard drugs for good.
Now You See What Drove Me as a Young Man.
After college and several jobs, I started our software company when I was about 30 years old.
At first, we were disappointed and confused when our original product was made useless by an IRS ruling – we had been working on it for six months and had quit our jobs to start this company!
Ask me to tell you that story some day.
We finally released a revised product, reborn to serve lawyers and accountants as time and billing software.
Little by little, we made progress, one sale at a time.
We were finally getting more and more customers…
We All Come From Humble Beginnings…
We were a brand new company, trying to break into a traditional market from outside the industry;
We had built software that tracks time and expenses in a unique and powerful way.
We were up against some very large competitors.
The American Bar Association Legal Technology Division threatened us that if we didn't get their stamp of approval, they would drive us out of business.
And their "stamp" cost $43,000!
That's an amount we would never have been able to afford at the time.
So we decided to slug it out in the market.
Our customers would decide if we had THEIR stamp of approval.
As a new company, our support costs were climbing, as we were struggling to grow our revenue.
Our upgrade was late, and we were pouring money into a new experimental development that had great promise but little results at this early stage.
It was tough going, always worrying about our future, and struggling with ongoing problems — we were working 16 hours every day.
There were signs of success, good reviews, increasing sales and lots of activity online about this upstart company in the time/billing space.
Every good review was a step on a ladder we couldn’t see the top of.
Then one afternoon, an angry customer called and threatened to sue and write bad reviews of our software.
To make matters worse, she was the head of the technology committee for a prominent Bar Association and could have a huge negative impact on us. Our business depended on our reputation.
We Had To Solve Her Problem!
She DEMANDED that we send someone to her office, and the expense would run into the thousands.
Did I mention we were barely breaking even?
I hadn’t taken a salary since we started the company.
I was unsure of what to do.
I thought it would be best to continue to help her by phone, but she was not cooperative or technically skilled enough to follow directions.
Struggling to Find a Solution, I Woke Up in the Middle of the Night With An Idea.
What if I could locate one of my best customers who already use our software every day and ask him or her to visit my client, with the offer of payment and favors?
I churned through several testimonial letters looking for someone in Los Angeles.
I thought of one person, Ann. She was quite competent at running our system; she lived near my other client in trouble.
I called her and asked if she would drive over to the law firm and help fix a problem. She agreed and I have her the address and waited to hear her results.
And I waited. I started getting concerned she would make it worse. What was wrong with me that I thought of this dumb idea?
The phone rang at 9:00 pm at night.
She told me the problem was solved!
The Next Thing She Said Changed My Life!
She said, “Yes, I fixed the problem and she was so happy, she gave me $100!
“And if you have any other clients who need my help, let me know…”
BOOM.
The Big Idea: Why Not “Certify” My Best Clients To Help Us?
Get good clients to help other clients in trouble!
All I needed was a qualification test to be sure they could actually run our systems.
So we wrote a test, charged about $500 to take it, and then we had a Certified Consultant program.
Or did we?
It was an “aha” moment; we had accidentally hit upon something that could be very big.
We sold about 60 tests very quickly, which alleviated some short-term cash problems and gave us…
Our first Certified Consultant community.
It solved the immediate problem, and gave us something to build more momentum—we finally had a competitive edge.
We started to announce the program to clients, and more and more wanted to use our Certified Consultants to help them with training, support, and upgrades.
For about five months, we kept selling tests and referring more clients to CCs.
But there were some serious cracks in the foundation.
We started to get complaints about the service our clients received.
We heard comments about several being unprofessional, not well trained, and some simply didn’t show up.
Then, It Happened. We Were Sued.
One of our Certified Consultants trashed a law firm’s billing system!
That consultant claimed he was an employee of my company.
The lawsuit was for Ten. Million. Dollars.
It could have destroyed our company and left me completely bankrupt.
Instead of turning this over to an attorney, I decided instead to call the client and handle it myself.
She was angry and upset. I listened carefully as she told me a story that seemed almost unbelievable, bordering on criminal.
I could have explained that they are independent contractors, or not connected with the company.
Instead, I Decided to Take FULL RESPONSIBILITY For What Happened.
I PROMISED that I would personally solve her problem myself.
I sent one of my best techs to her law firm, and he was able to untangle the mess.
I stayed in touch daily until it was.
I also had my tech deliver a check with a full refund, a letter stating that we took full responsibility and that she would enjoy continued service at no cost for the rest of our existence.
It Was The Right Thing To Do.
I was terrified that I was digging myself deeper by admitting it was my responsibility, but I felt compelled, and I wanted to solve her problem.
I had resolved the situation but... how many more of these disasters waiting to explode were out there?
I decided to personally call every other client who expressed concern with his or her CC experience.
I found out just how incompetent these people were and how unprofessional they appeared.
And how widespread this problem really was.
I had failed.
My idea wasn’t working, and we had made some terrible mistakes.
I thought about how to fix it, but there was no way.
I shut down the program; it was a failure.
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What would happen next? Would the company survive? Would we ever find a way to make this work?
What do honesty and integrity have to do with this process?
To find out what happened next….
PART TWO will be released soon, so please connect or follow me here on LinkedIn.
I will take you through the entire process of how to DOUBLE your revenue and add an ARMY of Certified Consultants who pay YOU to build your business.
You will soon see why THIS doubled the VALUE of my company in just two short years!
Watch for Part Two, coming soon….
Mitch Russo, CEO
LinkedIn Group Founder: The Alternate Revenue Channel Network