Thanks to those of you who left comments yesterday it was very much appreciated. I got asked what type of business I’m in and I’ve always made it a point to try and avoid stating that because my blog is meant to be a source of information for all business ventures. I did not want someone thinking that because I’m in a different industry the issues I was dealing with on a day to day basis wouldn’t apply to them. That simply is not the truth.
Anyways, it really doesn’t matter anymore, so I’ll let everyone know that I was in the debt settlement business. This industry really has a bad rap because it surged so fast during the economic downfall. All of these companies popped up with the hopes of making a quick buck and they ran really shitty operations. Some of them were telling clients shit on the phone that was just straight WRONG, and then were getting praised by their managers and bosses for closing deals they shouldn’t have been closing in the first place.
I’ve always ran a clean operation and I think it’s partially why it was so hard for me to get this thing to take off. I never felt comfortable enrolling a client I did not think was a good fit for this service, and I’d actually turn away a decent amount of clients because of this. Most companies would say/do anything to close a deal and that’s what ultimately led to the industries downfall. If you start doing shady shit, and a lot of money is being made, eventually there are going to be a lot of complaints, and the federal government is going to get involved.
I always knew the FTC was going to regulate this shit sooner or later so that was never a concern. I figured it would help weed out the shitty companies and the other business’s like my own would then thrive, however they went about regulation totally wrong and are basically shutting down the industry as a result.
The main issue is that they are regulating the manner in which our companies can collect fees for our service, making it impossible to run a business like this. There are a lot of upfront costs involved that the FTC didn’t take into account, although I doubt they really care either way.
What’s funny is that there are over 4000 debt settlement companies in the country with a total of 30,000-40,000 employees that are all going to be thrown out on their ass once this law passes. Damn shame.
So there you have it.
I’ve been keeping really busy today because naturally I have a lot to take are of. I’m still going to be getting leads and will continue to sell this shit as best I can while I can. I’m actually getting free live transfers starting next week so I’m looking forward to those and hopefully I’ll close a couple of deals and boost my residual income. Right now my top priority is to close deals.
I got a lot of other stuff taken care of as well, specifically with my finances. I cut my cell phone plan to the bar minimum. I was using it for work emails and all sorts of other shit, but now that I won’t need it for email I went back to the basic plan which saves me $50 a month. I also canceled my lead management software service because that shit is fuckin $250 a month and I won’t have a need for it anymore. Before I did that I made sure I downloaded all of my leads and saved them on an excel spreadsheet. Never know when that data might come in handy.
I made sure to call the bank and to put a stop pay on the automatic payment for that service so they don’t try and draft my account. Typically they take their payment out at the beginning of every month and my gut was telling me that they’d try to charge me for the month of August, and then cancel my shit, so I went straight to the bank to play it safe. When I called to cancel the lead management software they told me I have to email support and they will take care of it. Well I emailed support early this morning and it’s already after 12 and I still haven’t heard shit, so I’m sure they are sitting on it hoping they can get 1 more payment; sorry, that’s not happening. I definitely need that fucking money.
I also canceled my GoToMypc service I had because it allowed me to access my work computer from home. Its $20 a month, and I wont have a need for it anymore. Other then those things its looking like the majority of my savings is going to come from me doing some bargain grocery shopping. Everything else is cut to the bare minimum. I don’t have cable, my internet service at home is the slowest plan they offer, etc.
So last night I was obviously making frantic phone calls to anyone I knew to see what they were doing and what was available in terms of work. I spoke to a couple of friends who really didn’t have anything worthwhile to say other than, “ya bro, times are tough right now. Not too many companies are hiring.” Well thanks for the pep talk ya douche!
Then for whatever reason it hit me like a brick to email my old business partner from my very first business venture (my real estate investment company). I asked him what he was up to and told him we needed to catch up. He emailed me back his new cell phone number and told me to give him a call. We ended up talking on the phone for an hour last night and he is getting involved in this new business that seems like it has some really good potential. So good in fact, that I’ve already bought a website URL, and having been working on a website to launch to help with this. My goal is to get the website up by the end of the weekend and I’ve been working on it all day today.
The good thing about what he was talking about is that a lot of people don’t know about it yet and it’s fairly new so we’d be getting in on the ground level; which is what you need to do with business. If I had started my debt settlement company 5 years ago I’d be swimming in dough, but since I couldn’t start until later on, I ran out of time. Also, the program being offered is much more positive and you are genuinely helping people, so referral business is probably huge. With debt relief, no one wants to talk about or admit they have a debt problem, so you never got referral business.
Anyways, he told me to call him next week and we’d get together for lunch and talk about things in more detail. He admitted that he needed to gather more info before we sat down and talked about things.
I want to get the website up and running for a number of reasons. The first is I want him to be like “holy shit, you got a site up already?!” I want him to know that there is no tomorrow and we need to get rocking with this shit NOW. I also want to show him that I’m fucking serious and not wasting any damn time. Lastly, it will probably light a fire under his ass to get moving as well. This is the type of thing that can make a decent amount of money relatively quickly, and a large amount of money down the road. We are just going to have to figure out how to generate leads and take it from there. It seems like an easy sell if you have a qualified prospect, but you have to get those qualified prospects on the phone.
Today I had the chance to talk to an old college buddy of mine and it was really good to catch up with him. He just broke up with his girlfriend of 4 years whom he was living with so he was feeling kind of down. I let him bitch about his situation, then I bitched about my situation and so on. It was definitely good to vent for the both of us. Hang in there buddy, you’ll be alright.
So that’s everything that has happened in the last 24 hours which has flown by in the blink of an eye. Next week I’ll meet my old business partner for lunch and update you all more on that business venture. In the meantime it’s all about living on a budget, closing the deals I can get closed, and finishing the website.
Lastly, I need to change my goals on my “goal” page. Obviously the goals I have posted are irrelevant now so they need to be rewritten.
Thank you all for your support and I hope this is the beginning of bigger and better things for me!
Quest for Success 