Oz Konar Reviews: Interview with Kevin

Oz:
Hey everyone. Oz here with Business Landing Blueprint. I had one of my students join me today, Kevin. Hey Kevin, how you doing?
Kevin:
I’m doing great, Oz.
Oz:
Awesome. So Kevin is a part of my community and has been having massive success recently. I wanted to bring him on so I can get to know him a little more together with you guys, and have him share with us what he’s been doing that has been working so great for him. So Kevin, let’s get started buddy, so prior to you joining the Blueprint or finding out anything about me, what have you been doing? What’s been going on? Can you give us a little background about yourself?
Kevin:
Sure. Sure. Definitely. Well, I started in this business actually, cash advance business, since 2015. And it was new to me obviously, I came from a real estate background. And when the real estate market wasn’t doing that well, I went into mortgage modification, and then when that wasn’t doing well I switched to… And then I found this. I found merchant cash advance. I was with this big company out in Long Island, and this company had a good number of people in the office, about a good 50 to 100 people.
Oz:
Oh, wow.
Kevin:
And everyone, it’s a big, big room remember, and everyone started by you had to bring it at least one… To keep your job, you had to bring in at least one set of documents, application with three or four months bank statements in that first same week that you started.
Oz:
Wow.
Kevin:
So yeah, everyone. So that was the weeding out process. So you had to hit the ground running. And by the time… So you started at the front of the room, and if you don’t meet your goal you get fired, and they weed you out, weed you out, until you remain there. You learn enough and stuff like that. But I was there until… I started at the front of the room until I end up three years later, I end up at the back of the room.
Oz:
Wow.
Kevin:
[crosstalk 00:02:39] the management team in the back. So I learned a lot. We did a lot of credit card processing, credit card splits deals. That teach me a lot. That was my groundwork or my foundation to this business. That was about 2015.
Oz:
I know very few people, very little amount of people, who survive that long at a company that’s like… Because you can only grind so long. It can’t be a long term strategy. But you stuck through it man, wow. I applaud you for that. Three years in a cycle like that, you’ve got to have very solid psychology to survive that.
Kevin:
So true. So true. A lot of people got fired, a lot of people. Went through so many people. But I stick with it, and it was my foundation. I knew I had to learn this business inside out, stuff like that.
Oz:
Of course, and what happened then?
Kevin:
During that time… Well after that I couldn’t go further into management because it was a full slate of people over there, and to tell the truth I didn’t even know how much commission I was making, what the commission rates was. All the details of the transactions. I was just worried about learning, finding out how this business works. And then I look at Craigslist a little bit around, because I knew I was being cheated somehow. I look at Craigslist and then I move over to another cash advance company, and I found out that I was being cheated so much in terms of my commission. I think my commission there was like 10%, or maybe even less than 10%.
Oz:
Yeah. You never know. It’s usually much different than what they tell you they pay you.
Kevin:
Exactly. Exactly. What happened is that I just decided that I need to make a switch, started with another company, they were giving me 20% commission.
Oz:
Okay.
Kevin:
And rolled with them, continued with them, until one day they told me, “Kevin, you can’t use your cell phone.” That was in February this year.
Oz:
Really? [crosstalk 00:05:06]
Kevin:
You can’t hold your cell phone in your hand. And I was like, “What age am I?”
Oz:
Yeah.
Kevin:
I need my cell phone to do business, I need my cell phone to call my family. And they started coming up with all these silly rules, I think. And eventually I said, “You know what? I need to run my own thing.” So I quit, and in February this year I started running my own thing from home, one man shop, and never turned back. I’ve been making about $5000- $7000 a month.
Oz:
Nice.
Kevin:
Yeah. So I have continuous people, clients, who come to me on a monthly basis for more cash renewals, stuff like that. So I appreciate their business, and I service them.
Oz:
So everything looks like it has been going well, so what led you to search for a system like ours? How did you [crosstalk 00:06:12] into this?
Kevin:
Oh my God. People who have been in this business a long time, we’re all tired of making so much phone calls, granted like a boiler room situation, even thought that’s where I started. And I do enjoy doing that, but we just want to get calls coming in, or inbound. Or a more smarter way of doing business. And I found your system, I was a bit hesitant, I didn’t know the cost or I didn’t really know exactly what… Emails still kept on coming to my phone, my cell phone. The emails kept coming to my emails, and I say, “You know what? Let me close a couple deals and sign up on this program.” I spoke to somebody in your company, found out about the costs, two weeks later I joined up.
Oz:
Nice.
Kevin:
Because I wanted to move my business from 5000-7000 a month up to 15-20,000 a month, 30,000 a month, and beyond.
Oz:
Yeah. That’s the very clear distinction, because from your experience, if you kept doing what you’re doing, you’ll doing okay. You’ll still do your 5-10K, but that’s pretty much it. Because you can’t just double your efforts. There’s a maximum amount of time you can put in, so you’re not going to call 3000 people in one day. You can only get so efficient with your body, that’s just the problem, right? With machines that’s much different. You can push them and you can just leverage your time. I think you reached that point to notice, “Listen, all right, it’s good. I’m making money, I’m working from home.” That’s the dream for most people obviously. But, with the current strategy I can’t really go beyond that, right?
Kevin:
Yeah, you can’t. Definitely can not. And it’s my dream to get to 20, 30, 40,000. I want to get to that level where I see that dream coming to life right now. Coming to reality.
Oz:
Yeah. [crosstalk 00:08:27]
Kevin:
With the system that you have.
Oz:
[crosstalk 00:08:28] And honestly, in the Blueprint program, we don’t have a lot of people who come from telemarketing background because a lot of the times if you have that heavy telemarketing background, transition doesn’t become easy, because over the years you’re trying to do your own thing. So you always just took action and when you tell someone, “Listen, that part of what you’re doing, you can automate it.” People don’t believe that. Where as someone who hasn’t been exposed to that, they’re just much easier to transition, because they don’t have any background in what else they can do. They just adapt to it.
Oz:
So that’s definitely part of the reason I wanted to talk to you, that adaptation period for you was much faster. So believe it or not when I talked to my team, I tell them specifically if someone has very strong telemarketing background, just make sure that he or she is a good fit for this because this will require doing 180 degrees opposite of what they’re doing. Make sure they’re okay with that because we don’t want someone to start and next day go back to telemarketing because they think it’s just… That is usually the problem, but you seem to have broken through that very fast. And you posted within our group your successes.
Oz:
So let’s talk about it. What has been happening since you joined and actively are participating in the Blueprint?
Kevin:
Yeah. I have been basically… There are different ways of doing this business, and through your system you have LinkedIn, right?
Oz:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Kevin:
Oh my God, and make sure in the mornings I have log on, do my thing, and I get a couple of clients through that. They’re not necessarily cash advance clients, but they are SDA loans, they’re doing [inaudible 00:10:12] lines of credit, things like that. So I have a few of that going on coming up to be closed very soon. Actually one for 350,000 soon to be closed up.
Oz:
Wow.
Kevin:
So yeah, and that’s an SDA loan. Never heard of that in my entire business life. I would always hear people talking about, “Oh, your guys’ rates are terrible. You guys’ cash advance rates are terrible, 40%, whatever the case is.” And I can get money from a bank and I didn’t know I could actually be a bank one day [crosstalk 00:10:58] I can get those types of rates also. And this is heaven for me right now. Where we can actually give different types of products and you have income from several different ways, means.
Oz:
It’s such a relief I believe, for everyone involved, that you don’t have to push what you have in your agenda anymore, but only push what is good for the customer. Because back then, someone challenged me about two weeks ago, one of the bigger MCA companies, they said, “In one of your videos that you say that know MAC company knows other products. Well, we do have it on our website.” I’m like, “Awesome. So how many have you sold last month? How many SDAs have you sold? Yeah, you do have a page on it on our website, but if I pull your best guys from the phones and ask them to pitch be SDA, will he be able to do it?” They’re like, “Well, not really, but we have it.” Well, that’s what I mean. You guys have no idea besides merchant cash advance. You’re not really offering anything. 99% of the time. Yeah, if it is a one off deal, maybe the owner will take it or whatever, but most of the industry are not really an alternative lending industry. They’re a merchant cash advance industry, would you agree?
Kevin:
Precisely. Precisely. Oh, you’re in a different level. You’re on a completely different level than all of those merchant cash… And I’ve been around, I’ve seen it, you’re on a completely different level than all of those companies. And all they do is buy UCC lists, and then they have a whole big room calling those lists every day. They make money because it’s cash advance, yes. But they’re not being consulted. They’re not being professional about this thing. Not getting the best for each client, no. You can’t put a square in a round hole. So you got to meet the customer’s… In terms of my other deals, especially these that I talk to you about, or posted on Facebook recently with you guys, yeah those are basically deals that I have clients who now trust me more because of the system.
Kevin:
I can give them this, I can give them this, I can give them that, and they now see me more as a professional than even before. They liked me before, now they love me.
Oz:
Yeah. You transitioned from being a sales guy to a consultant, which makes a massive different, right? So a lot of people say, “Oh, Alex I have years of sales experience.” You might have years of sales experience, I trust that, but I doubt that anyone from this industry have years of consultative sales experience. Because like what you’re doing, and when you have access to multiple products, there’s really no need for hard selling anyone. You don’t need to know those closing tactics that you sell someone so hard that they can’t even breathe. Like if you [crosstalk 00:14:00]
Kevin:
If you hear a sigh in their voice, or if you hear a little thing in their voice, that’s when you close now. You don’t need to do all that. No tricks. No tricks. You’re a consultant. And I tell you, one of my clients that I did close just recently, I was just chasing her for a long time. I was calling her, calling her, calling her. Another thing in this business is that you have to be patient, you have to be consistent.
Oz:
Of course.
Kevin:
But I was calling her and calling her, until I sent her my website. Until I presented myself as a consultant.
Oz:
Yep.
Kevin:
She bought immediately, and gave me a nice commission in the first week of the month. It was wonderful.
Oz:
Yeah. Because before she didn’t have the confidence to trust you on that regard, not as a person but as what you’re representing, right? Now that you’ve presented her with what you look like professionally, because if someone gets to know you as an individual, obviously they’ll most likely trust you. But in business, the challenge is we don’t have an opportunity to get to know each person one on one, right? That’s why our company needs to represent ourselves professionally enough so someone seeing from outside can say, “All right, so he looks solid, like he’s a real business. Let me just talk with him.”
Oz:
And we did this testing with one of the other members in my seven figure program, they’ve been dabbling in email marketing without a proper website or anything like that, and they’re saying, “Well our [inaudible 00:15:42] suffer.” I told them, “Listen, let’s go back. Since we have the foundation set up.” I talk about foundation quite a bit. So let’s do a simple email campaign. All the sudden they got five submissions. Why? Because their LinkedIn profile was very modern and it was optimized. They had an actual website, the contact information and all that stuff. All the sudden people that were hesitant before, now they’re coming back and applying. That’s just human psychology. When we’re in doubt we don’t make decisions, we have to have some level of certainty or comfort with a person because we make any buying decisions. That’s how it works.
Kevin:
Exactly. Exactly. Do you know also that this lady, a friend of mine, she wanted also to build a website for me. She always said, “You need to get professional [crosstalk 00:16:27]” I answer, “So how much is it going to cost me?” She said, “Okay, since I know you Kevin, I’m going to give you the website for $1000.”
Oz:
Oh, boy.
Kevin:
She said, “I’m going to give you the website for $1000.” So I said, “Yeah, I’m thinking about it.” But I came across your program Oz, and I tell you for the amount that I paid for you, she would only give me the website for $1000 and that would be it.
Oz:
That would be it.
Kevin:
That would be it. Now I have a whole entire system and I’m looking at her like… I am so happy I did not go with her.
Oz:
But she’s not a marketer, she’s a designer?
Kevin:
She’s a designer. [crosstalk 00:17:13]
Oz:
Yes, I received an email. Someone got my email through our website, and sent an email saying that they’re looking for someone to build a website for them. They are some level of call center. They said their budget for a website is $10,000- $12,000. They’re looking for this perfect website. My response back to him was, “So what’s your marketing plan after that?” They’re like, “We’re going to get to that.” It’s like you can’t build the best looking billboard in the middle of a desert if no one sees it? So you have to start with the marketing. Sometimes people have the wrong idea. They spend this massive budget… Either they don’t have anything, or if they want to have something they want to spend everything on it not backed up with any marketing plan. So to me, it’s not going to work. We didn’t take the project obviously, but [crosstalk 00:18:07]
Oz:
As a marketer, I think one of the key takeaways that people tell me, yeah you learn about this industry when you join the blueprint, but my goal is to have people learn how to think like a marketer, how to think like a professional business owner. I think that’s the game changer. If that was not the case, I would have created a training on how to sell better. Well, that’s how much difference? If I added one percent to your sales skills but no marketing, how much more could you possibly make? Not much.
Kevin:
Not much. Not much. You can grind it out, but how much hours you have in a day plus it’s just you, one person. It’s just one person and you’re not a machine. It’s not going to work.
Oz:
It’s not going to work.
Kevin:
It’s not going to work.
Oz:
And you have days that you’re not so positive. [crosstalk 00:18:54]
Kevin:
Exactly.
Oz:
That happens. We’re human beings.
Kevin:
So true. Everyone. Everyone. But your system is amazing, and I love it, and I’m so happy to be here, and looking forward to my business. It’s my baby, my business is my baby, and I am so proud. Actually I got some business cards yesterday. You guys do business cards also? No, you don’t.
Oz:
No, we don’t, because we don’t get into offline marketing, but I recommend it to anyone who had existing contacts. Like if you’re going to go to places and talk to people. So for sure. But for someone who just starts out, I don’t want them to just go to networking events and start [crosstalk 00:19:40]
Kevin:
No, no [crosstalk 00:19:40]
Oz:
But you have existing clients, so that’s a different story.
Kevin:
Yeah, yeah. Exactly. So I dabble in that a little in terms of expanding what I have. But I was looking at the Vista Print and stuff like that, and they were like, “You can put it on a pen. You can put your company name on [crosstalk 00:20:01] This is my baby, I want to definitely build up that baby up into… But I can’t wait to get to 20, 30, 40, 50,000 a month. Obviously I’m looking at your seven figure program, and one day, yeah. One day I’m going to get there. But I’m really, really excited about the future.
Oz:
Yeah, absolutely man. You’ll get there in no time. You adapted really fast and you’re just already [inaudible 00:20:32] massive pipeline funding deals and building more credibility in the marketplace. So that’s [crosstalk 00:20:38] a winner for me.
Kevin:
Oh my God.
Oz:
Any last thoughts you want to add before I left you go?
Kevin:
I just want to say that my daughter, I started my business name is my daughter’s name, Kamber. K for Kimberly, and her middle name is Amber. So it’s Kamber.
Oz:
That’s beautiful.
Kevin:
But that’s behind me, so I want to really build this business. I can leave a legacy behind one day.
Oz:
Absolutely, and you can only do that through business ownership. So you can’t really create or leave a legacy by working for someone else. I think you already pulled that trigger and you’ve been running your business, and we all need a why to build massively successful businesses. I can tell that yours is your daughter, you named your company after her, that’s pretty amazing. Because one of the things that I know that one of the easier ways to get to your goal is to remind yourself constantly of why you’re doing it. The way I decorated my office, I don’t really care if it looks cool or not, I want to decorate it with things that remind me why I’m doing what I’m doing. This is where you work is almost like a sacred place. You can’t just put random things in there. Anything you put in there, whether it’s the paintings, all of them have meanings for me and I have a bunch of books here, they all need to support the common goal you’re working towards.
Oz:
If it does then it makes it easier, but for example that’s why I hate the idea of cubicles. Like when you’re working for someone else. It’s like in you’re in a jail, so it doesn’t really support an environment. So home office you can do that, your personal office you can do that. So definitely a great idea to name a company that has a lot deeper meaning than just a company name you look up online.
Kevin:
Oh no, no.
Oz:
[crosstalk 00:22:36] but thanks for your transparency Kevin. Great to have you here, buddy. Definitely looking forward to your success further, okay?
Kevin:
Thanks, man. Thanks so much.
Oz:
All right. Take care now.
Kevin:
All right, take care.
Oz:
Buh-bye.
Kevin:
Bye.