Putting More Green in Your Wallet is as easy as 1-2-3

Being on the road as a guest speaker and instructor over the past ten years as well as my 22 plus years [boy am I getting old] in the cash flow industry has given me insight as to the reasons why some factoring company salespeople and consultants are successful in this industry while others are not. Therefore, when I was asked to write an article about putting more “green” in your wallet, I immediately began thinking of that which differentiates those really successful consultants, from the ones that don’t seem to burst.

With blogs like this one and funding companies and Associations who are eager to train you, everyone should feel as though they have access to the tools needed to be successful. Call me silly, but I am certainly of the belief that there is no better commodity to “sell” than cash.

When I sit in as an instructor of a Cash Flow training seminar, I always ask the following question at the end of the training: How many people believe that they can leave here and get business in the door within the next 2 to 3 weeks? In every instance, everyone raises their hand.

So how does a person in the cash flow industry “put more green” in their wallet? It is as easy as 1, 2, 3.

1. Begin with the end in mind. OK, so I ripped off Steven Covey for this all time great line.

They say that a business is only successful if a solid business plan is conceived on Day 1. However, it is a sorry fact that less than 5% of those starting a business in the Cash Flow industry begin with their short and long term goals securely in mind. How do you get started on creating a plan? Start by asking yourself these initial questions. How much money do I need to make in order to be in this business full-time? Then ask, what do I really want to be making a year?

Be careful! Don’t set yourself up for failure. Do not answer, I want to be making $5 million next year. Instead, be real! Give yourself realistic short and long destinations. When you start your car, you know the destination to where you are going to drive. It is usually after you drive out of your driveway when you decide which streets will take you there. In business, once you have the destinations, you will be able to plot the map on how you will get there. May you change directions along the way? Absolutely, yes!

2. Test and Track. Do you have a marketing strategy? What is it? Are you directing your efforts towards any particular industry? Which ones and why? Are there sectors within these industries that are going through growth? How are you communicating with these targets?

A lot goes into the creation of a marketing strategy. You may try some things that work well while other directives fail miserably. This is why it is important to track everything that you do. By doing this you can make life a formula of success.

I think that it was Albert Einstein that said {and I paraphrase} that true lunacy is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different outcomes. Yet, some people lament a lack of continued success while they continue doing the same things day after day. These people don’t truly conceptualize a plan behind what they are doing and change their game plan.

Quote me on this: When you track your strategies to know the successful and failing outcomes, you can choose direction with clarity.

An illustration of this is how you would track a direct mail campaign to a certain target market. Track how many letters it takes to get one call. Track how many calls it takes to get one presentation. Track how many presentations it takes to get one application/completed worksheet. Finally, how many worksheets does it take to get a funded deal. In time, you will know how many letters it takes to that target to fund a deal. Constant tracking leads to formulaic results.

In factoring, we have this wonderful thing called “residual income.” It means that once you fund a client, chances are that they will continue to create more invoices and factor week after week, month after month. Every time your funding company factors and collects on those invoices, you get a commission. This is true for the life of the relationship between your factor and your client: week after week, month after month, year after year.

As you may guess, based on averages, once you have closed 9 or 10 deals, you could be making over $100,000 per year in residual income. Now life becomes interesting. At this point, many Factoring salespeople and/or consultants choose the lifestyle that comes with only having to replace a file if one stops funding. If this becomes you, would a formula telling you what needs to be done to bring in a deal be helpful in making your life easy? Absolutely, yes!

3. Show up to play the game. A business trainer named Steve Bregman once pointed out something that I found truly amazing. It was about the 2003 Detroit Tigers.

Those baseball fans reading this article will remember the 2003 Tigers as being a team close to a record season. The record; worst team in baseball history. You see, if the Tigers had lost a few more games, they would have taken the title of least wins and most losses in a single season in baseball history.

Here is the point –  Steve told me that the Tigers  in this terrible season actually won over 50 games. They won close to a third of their games. While tapping his head, he told me to think about this. He re-enunciated that, ..arguably the worst team in baseball history won a third of their games. “How?” he asked and then answered, “showing up.”

This shows you the importance of “showing up“. A third of the business files funded by the most successful salespeople/consultants are achieved by simply “showing up” to play the game.

Here is a surprising fact, some people simply don’t show up to play. Some show up but never come to bat. They make themselves busy setting up their bushiness without ever really executing. Every instructor can tell you a story of someone we called 6 months after training only to find that they were still designing their business card.

So here is my question. Have you shown up to play the game? I mean really shown up!