its-time-my-360-view-of-the-ufc

At one point, telemarketing rooms were such a popular federal investigative prioritythat the local network news actually sent an undercover reporter to apply and be hiredand trained by my sta. One day I got an intercom call from our receptionist that therewere people with cameras outside our Venice, California, oces. Three minutes later,the camera crew and the female reporter were walking down the hallway to thesalesrooms, asking for the owner. This was actually my “rst time” on TV. If you hadbeen watching, you would have seen me walking away to call my lawyer.All of this scared me. At the time I was hearing of sleazy marketing tactics in otherparts of the telemarketing industry—companies that were selling people emptypackages or bilking seniors out of their last cents, all because they had answered thephone and gotten caught up in a salesman’s enticing pitch. I made a decision. “To hellwith this,” I said. “I’m quitting.”Don’t get me wrong. I loved the money and it was fun while it lasted, but I didn’twant to live my life always looking over my shoulder. By now I was twenty-four yearsold, and rather than be scared about what came next, I felt condent that I wouldalways be able to make decent money by starting businesses, testing them to see howwell they performed, and making a decision about whether to continue operating themafter a good chunk of data had come in.For a while I helped develop and manage a company that sold nutritional products.My mom actually became one of my top independent distributors. I dabbled again intelemarketing, using my own pitch—a clean pitch—where we called people and askedabout their business needs and told them about our products. I had as many as ftysalespeople working the phones and grossing close to $10 million in sales a year. I wasbeginning to see the value of the soft sell, of educating consumers and letting themarrive at the decision to buy on their own. I rmly believe that the best salespeopleknow how to let the customer sell themselves on a product. All the salesperson has to dois educate and excite them by saying as little as possible but meaning as much aspossible. You create the sizzle and then “close” the deal. I did some motivationalspeaking at the time, too, sharing what I’d learned about salesmanship and living ahealthy life.BUFFERISM NO. 4“BSC: BALLS, SKILL, CONFIDENCE.”BSC is my theory of life. You can do anything if you have these three things. Somepeople focus exclusively on skill—preparing, training, becoming professional.That’s good, but don’t neglect the other two. Beyond these three, you’ll need luckand timing. But if you focus on BSC, that’s a strong base to work from.Outwardly, my life was back to awesome. I’d get up in the morning, stick mysurfboard in my new Mercedes 560 SL convertible, and drive to work with the top downand the board sticking up in the front seat, buckled in beside me like a surfing executive.