I had posted this before, but I wanted to included some testimony from Jim Vitale, the swarthy looking con criminal in this FTC video. Pay close attention to Vitale's description of method, because it is relevant to more than simply buying business opportunities.
Compare the pithiness of Vitale's advice: Fast no's and slow, slow yeses, to the FTC's advice about getting the disclosure document.
From Vitale's testimony to the FTC
My name is Jim Vitale. I was involved in sales of business opportunities for seven years.
I participated in a lot of illegal and fraudulent activities that surround the sales of business opportunities.
After an investigation and some covert operations by the Federal Government we were arrested and prosecuted. I was sentenced, sent to prison and as a result I have a heavy restitution pay for the rest of my life for the damage that I did to the public.
What happens is company buys spots, local cable spots, national fees whatever it is.
If you're targeting the country or individual states and you want a 30 second spot commercial usually with a lot of bullets in it, by bullets I mean sales points, things like stay at home, no real leg work required, turnkey business opportunity, things that get people's attention and then they call in.
Some people at the end of the day I was amazed that they book.
College professor,attorneys, blue-collar workers, schoolteachers, law enforcement, butchers, people who come from money who want to make more money. You never saw me in your life.
You saw a commercial on TV, got on the phone with me, you spoke with me ten seconds I gave you names to call and some things to look up and you called me back three days later and you wrote me a check for $50,000. Does that sound a little screwed up? The two most important buttons are greed and need.
You're an airline pilot. You're comfortable. I know that. You're living very comfortable.
But you tell me that your 23-year-old son is graduating from school and he has no direction.
So as a gift to him for graduation you're trying to put him into a business that he can grow and won't require much application of the stuff he hasn't learned in college for the last four years. There's need.
Now I flip into I use that to my strength and I tell him how easy it's going to be for him but how responsible he has to be to run the business and how he has to interact and the potential for growth is unlimited. There's need.
Then I talk to the electrician, union electrician who has a 401(k) who is trying to put himself in a better place and all it's about to him is the money. He wants to keep his job, he wants a lazy man's business opportunity where he doesn't require a lot of attention, he can service it maybe 5 to 7 hours a week. And make an additional income as if they were two of him working on the job as an electrician. Now it's greed.
So now I just throttle up on that side. It's great. It's fantastic. What time you get off work Jim? 7 o'clock. Perfect. Most stores are open until 9:00. You can leave your job two days a week, pick up the money, say hi to the person behind the counter and move to the next location. Perfect for you. Greed.
The money is the catalyst into the business and then you're in a little social setting, it's a small group. You want to be the king of the mountain. You want everybody to respect you so it becomes more than the money and the actual act of is a rub of adrenaline.
It's a feeling, it's hard to explain. When you start to -- when a person turns the corner and you have been doing it as long as I had, you'd know. You just know that he's in my hand -- that's it. You know.
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