Category: Business

Need to open a US bank account by yourself? Need a US Credit Card? Need a US loan? Is Dunn and Bradstreet a waste of money/time for most business owners? Yes. Think a secured card without an SSN can help you qualify for personal credit and eventually get a personal or business Visa/Mastercard?  Nope. This is a common mistake banks tell customers.

Speaking from personal experience, if you’re a non-US citizen and don’t have a social security number, you might run into a lot of challenges. A lot of government agencies and private bureaus aren’t cross-trained to private the information you need in many cases, so you might also be unintentionally misinformed.

1) Get a US Visa: (eg. TN/E2/EB-5) – Involves following their instructions on http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/types/types_1326.html 2) Get an I94 when entering the border to US, typically from US Customs and Border Protection (insist on this being completed and don’t enter your country of origin without this supporting document) 3) Get a US mailing address and I was told the city must match the city where you’ll visit a Social Security Address.  Since I tried to get one in New York and was making a trip over to California, I had to immediately use a hotel address I was staying at in New York and then call the Social Security Office in New York later with my reference number to use my California address. 4) With your US Visa and I94, go to the Social Security Number (SSN) office with the US visa, an I94 and proof of address 5) Wait about 4 weeks for the SSN to arrive in the mail 6) Open a US bank account (you might need an SSN to get one unless you physically go in or have ANOTHER US signer on the account) 7) a) Use the SSN to get a secured card (even a brand new secured card might be denied so you need to build a banking relationship). These secured cards cost up to $30/year and claim to report to the 3 big credit bureaus: Transunion, Equifax, and Experian b) Optionally, get secured line of credits through your same banking relationship (You are basically paying interest for the privilege of eventually getting credit) 8.) Ensure the bank guarantees approval on the secured card (eg. Wells Fargo can do this. Capital One told me they can’t.).  The minimum deposit is $300. 9) Generate history on this SSN by paying off your secured card. Eventually, banks claim you’ll automatically be offered a non-secured card after successful payment history 10) Use a non-secured card and gradually increase its limit with good payment history.

I hope this post is useful for others who follow in my footsteps. There is a lot of misinformation out there but this is what I found works.

P.S. you can get around some requirements and get corporate credit with a US corporate tax ID to apply for credit (eg. getting a US cell phone with T-Mobile; however, other carriers like AT&T may not budge)

Disclaimer: Don’t use this as legal advice and do your own due diligence

The following are some success formulas:

Formula 1: “The Basic or Foundation”

1. Reason Why
2. Dream
3. Research
4. Create a game plan
5. Perform a wide test
6. Perform a specific test
7. Get a clear wide vision
8. Get a clear specific Vision
9. Recruit the right team
10. Roll-out
11. Kaizen

Formula 2: Arbitrage Exploitation

1. Find a business model
2. Identify arbitrage
3. Exploit arbitrage

Formula 3: Consolidation

1. Find a good business model
2. Consolidate models

Formula 4: Joint ventures

1. Identify good business with complimentary skills
2. Match good businesses

Formula 5: Trading/Bartering

1. Trade desired items with less desirable item

Formula 6: Brokering

1. Perform a service, or provide goods for a transaction/administration fee

Let’s face it: sales can be intimidating.    When I first picked up the phone as a 16 year telemarketer and called my first client, I felt like I was going to die of a panic attack.   If my desire to make money so that I could become a debt-free University graduate was not there as a motivator, I might have taken the easy way.
….

I might have quit.

Well, I stuck to it and I was fortunate to have two great teachers who sat beside and — Rohit Sharma and Anjit (last name?). 

Lesson 1: Mentors are crucial.   Learn from the best and Model/Reverse-Engineer Them.  I studied my mentors thoroughly and incorporated many of the things I thought they "incredible" at into my phone calls.   After two months of working there, I was ranked #2 out of 100 employees for  Quality score–where my phone calls where monitored for quality compliance as we sold insurance–and was in the top 5 sales performers.  

Lesson 2: Measure it–what you measure can be improved.   I soon made it to #1 for quality, which stuck for several months as I just asked quality controllers what it took to get a #1 score.

After finding a better paying face to face sales job with an outsourced sales firm selling home for service on behalf of Rogers Telecom, my fear of selling and essentially SCREWING UP in front of a customer crept back in.

Face-to-face felt twice as scary because if I messed up, I’d be putting myself on the line and have the person I was speaking to see it for themselves.   For the first 3-5 days of selling face to face, I felt like absolute crap each day.   I’d  work 10 hour days and make $0 unless I performed.   It was PURE COMMISSION.   This scared many people away.  In fact, we had about a 75% turnover rate at our office in Hamilton, Ontario due to the high stress nature of the job.   About 50% of people who joined quit within 7 days.  

 

 

I grew to love the challenge because the upside was huge.  I idolized the top performers at out our office and how they could pull in a cool $1000/week.  "How awesome is that?"    I want to pull my first $1000 week.   

Side note: Face to face sales is far more impressive than phone sales because you have to have more than just a great voice and ability to lead a conversation.   I was absolutely amazed when I had my manager at the time, Scott,  make 6 sales  * $35/sale = $210/day on my first day of training after bantering with customers, building rapport, and making statements to middle-aged woman like, "How’s it going?  Is your mom or day home?"  He kept it nice and playful.

Scott’s style was fantastic and was quite different from my super-professional, rigid style I became so accustomed to.  

Lesson 3: Learn Your Winning Style.   After persisting for two weeks, and publicly announcing that I wanted to earn 6 sales/day to get $1000 weeks, I finally did it by week 3.   I went out in the "field" with the top performers and learned the tricks of the trade.  

What was my style?  I’d be humorous at first to show I wasn’t a mindless drone, but immediately I’d describe the unique selling proposition and believe 100% that every person I spoke to needed to change their phone service.   I told them that too.   As a joke, if someone said no, I’d say, "No one has ever said that to me before" with a deadpan face…haha  Sometimes it worked and sometimes it was good for a laugh, but I truly felt that way.

I literally believed I had one of the highest stress jobs in the world.   The cold approach was scary.  I got over it  when a huge carrot was dangled in front of my face in early June 2005….

The Top 5 salespeople in the nation would be flown to California on an all-expense paid trip to meet with some big direct name marketers along with $500US spending cash (when the US$ was somewhat important…*SHAKES FIST*).

So, I took action because I wanted the prize.   I was not the #1 performer but I was up there.   Scott (again, my manager) took me out for lunch one day and we had a recap of my progress to see where I could improve.   Together, Scott and I wrote down a set of 5 or more goals.   We wrote about 3 together and I filled out the rest in private. 

I set out unusually high goals that I believe were unattainable.  Some of them include:

– # 1 in sales in Canada

– winning the trip to California

– being promoted to a leadership position

– making over $1000/week and more….

Lesson 4: Write Down Your Goals.   Announce It to the World and Get Passionate About It.   We had a custom at the office where we announced our daily goals.  I used to joke around say with suspense and a pause, "Today.   My goal is….to have a fantastic lunch.   Success follows a great lunch."  I was not entirely kidding.   Eating a  great lunch as opposed to junk food did make me feel better throughout the day.

Back to the point…I began announcing my goals and I truly meant them.  I told everyone that I wanted to become #1.    I suspect some people were afraid to make that goal public because they didn’t want to publicly fail.   I felt that either way, my performance was going to be put in a public spotlight during the course of the month long competition, so I decided to go for it and make myself proud.   I wanted an accomplishment that I could look back to and be proud that I accomplished what I started with no regrets.

Lesson 5: Don’t Lose Focus.   On that thought….stay tuned for part 2.   I’m not going to pretend I intentionally planned to stop here.  I just don’t want to write this much in a day as I want to get back to a project…also known as FOCUS.  

Stay tuned for part 2 where I tell you how I put my performance on steroids during the course of the competition (without injecting anything into myself or dealing with, ahem, shrinkage).   Thanks for reading.

My friends and I will soon be launching ContractorOffer.com: The Online Marketplace for Local Contractors

This is both a New Venture Project for the Richard Ivey School of Business and venture we plan to carry out.