{"id":2266,"date":"2008-01-30T21:39:53","date_gmt":"2008-01-31T04:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=2266"},"modified":"2008-01-31T07:00:19","modified_gmt":"2008-01-31T14:00:19","slug":"a-mastermind-of-hucksters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2266\/a-mastermind-of-hucksters\/","title":{"rendered":"A Mastermind of Hucksters"},"content":{"rendered":"

High Body Count
\n<\/strong>
\n1+1=3…A Mastermind Alliance<\/em>. I first learned of this\u00a0concept over 20 years ago\u00a0during one of many telemarketing\u00a0seminars I attended as a tenderfoot insurance salesman. I can’t recall\u00a0which one exactly, but I’m certain the motivational speaker cashed my post-dated check—a sign up now and<\/em> pay later<\/em> gimmick\u00a0included in the 2 week Increased Performance Guarantee<\/em>.<\/em>\u00a0 My office buddy and Mastermind<\/em> phoning partner Sam, however, bounced his<\/em> post-dated <\/em>check and eventually got sent to a collection agency\u00a0before\u00a0escaping \u00a0the business for good without ever making a nickle, or for that matter, an appointment as an insurance man.<\/p>\n

This\u00a0was all back in a time when I truly wanted to believe that ‘No<\/strong>‘ meant ‘K.N.O.W; <\/strong>the ‘Client’ (person on a list)\u00a0really needed to know<\/strong> more<\/strong><\/em> to make the ultimate\u00a0buying decision; and a shoeshine and a handshake?….well shucks<\/em>, “I just want to earn<\/em> your business, Mr Fencestraddler.”\u00a0 Somehow, even though I\u00a0tried<\/em> to fancy myself a\u00a0believer, all the sales talk never sounded quite right coming out of my own mouth.\u00a0 And\u00a0even though\u00a0I had long since left the business\u00a0at the time, I publicly applauded the Do Not Call legislation of 2003 and all the crappy jobs and unrealized frustration it eliminated from people’s lives.<\/p>\n

My Sales Manager, a guy named Charlie who initially recruited me\u00a0into the business,\u00a0called me in\u00a0for a\u00a0chat one morning after three months on the job.\u00a0He had a picture window\u00a0above his\u00a0cherry wood credenza\u00a0that overlooked a dense forest preserve behind the office.\u00a0His three remaining walls were plastered with ceremonial photographs, sales award plaques, and framed certificates, all about him. He had an electric shoe buffer next to his cherry wood desk and a full length mirror behind his door with a sign above that read: Would You Hire This Person?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

A few months earlier he convinced me to give the insurance business a try.\u00a0\u00a0He and one of his trainees sold me a rinky dink burial policy one snowy night–a ritual in itself that lasted\u00a0three solid hours and culminated with my signature and a check for the first month’s premium just\u00a0as Letterman\u00a0was coming\u00a0on the tube and my dinner withered to ash\u00a0in the oven. My ‘belief in the product,’ \u00a0he said, was ‘the Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

High Body Count 1+1=3…A Mastermind Alliance. I first learned of this\u00a0concept over 20 years ago\u00a0during one of many telemarketing\u00a0seminars I attended as a tenderfoot insurance salesman. I can’t recall\u00a0which one exactly, but I’m certain the motivational speaker cashed my post-dated check—a sign up now and pay later gimmick\u00a0included in the 2 week Increased Performance Guarantee.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-real-estate","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2568,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2568\/the-odysseus-medal-competition-voting-for-the-peoples-choice-award-is-open-18\/","url_meta":{"origin":2266,"position":0},"title":"The Odysseus Medal competition — Voting for the People’s Choice Award is open","author":"Greg Swann","date":"February 4, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Sorry to be late. I've worked with dozens of Macs, mine and other people's, since 1985, and Iridium is the first one I've ever had fail to start up. I cleaned my desk today -- idle hands -- and fired up 96 Tears, a ten-year-old G3, for the first time\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog Carnivals"","block_context":{"text":"Blog Carnivals","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blog-carnivals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3895,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3895\/bloodhoundblog-unchained-has-a-home-in-orlando-for-a-twelve-hour-event-and-the-price-for-tickets-just-went-up-to-199\/","url_meta":{"origin":2266,"position":1},"title":"BloodhoundBlog Unchained has a home in Orlando for a twelve-hour event — and the price for tickets just went up to $199","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"We have a place to howl in Orlando at last. We wanted something very sexy, very cool, but the constrictions on time and space were killing us. We finally settled on a hotel conference facility to get a room big enough to accommodate all the people who want to join\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3471,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3471\/open-sourcing-and-spiking-the-punchbowl-with-anarchism-rebarcamp-is-birthed-as-a-user-generated-un-conference-and-it-absolutely-rocks\/","url_meta":{"origin":2266,"position":2},"title":"Open sourcing and spiking the punchbowl with anarchism. 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