Hi, everybody. My name is John Fischer. Welcome to Salesleads.TV. So we've had in the past, we had an article that said John Fischer's 34 Year Journey with Salesleads TV. We're at 34, and we're going to be, God willing, and the creek don't rise.
I just turned 73 on Monday. Today's, April 18, by the way, we're going to be at 34 years, but we are officially at 34 years. So what I'm going to do is this 34 year journey, I'm going to bring it up to date and announce the John Fischer's 34 Year Journey with Salesleads TV.
So sales lead started out in 1990. We actually started out with a company. It's called Federal Union. I like the name because it sounds like a bank. By the way, the guy behind me, that's Sergio, he's an It guy.
He's building one of our websites right now, actually shopping for an eyewatch. But as usual, the bottom line is that we were Federal Union because it sounded like a bank, a lead bank. And then we evolved into Salesleads TV, and that's when we actually started our website.
We had a Saleslead TV website briefly, but it wasn't functional. It was just pretty much a shrine to my ego. I'll explain that some other time. I was introduced to a Lead business when I was a commodity broker.
There was this old man, his name was Al Hartstein. And Al used to pull up into the parking lot, open the trunk of his car, and he'd have all kinds of leads in there. And back in those days, the look like sheets of paper.
They said mail out or prospect sheets or whatever, and they'd be stacks of them. And the brokers would call those people up and they check off. Are you liquid? Who makes the investment decisions? That sort of thing.
And. We would go ahead and spend 1000 $2,000, and before the month was over, we'd raise 5100, $200,000. It's amazing, the return on our investment. And by the way, that same return, the investment is amazing.
There's a little part of me that's very, very resentful that my customers barely ever acknowledge the amount of money they make from my leads. But hey, I'm a happy guy, I make money also. So that's the thing, they're never going to tell you.
They're happy. They're never going to tell you, wow, man, I really did good with that last batch because they're afraid that you're going to charge them more money. But I just went ahead and kept buying from Al.
And Al would always have brand new stuff. And it was kind of exciting when the guy showed up and he'd have all these brand new leads. We couldn't wait to go upstairs and call him. I was a commodity broker, and we had a problem with the firm.
We had a San Francisco office. The guy did a broker guarantee where he would guarantee the funds and then the customer would send him the next day. And the trade went against the guy and it was a quarter million dollars.
And he didn't pay. And then the guy in bunker atone, he had to come up with the money, the owner, and he said, well I'm not paying, so they bankrupted the company. And what happened was I got very pissed off.
I had $30,000 in commissions due. And when I went to PSI, I said, hey, Psy, where's my money? And Psy was a frail older man and big tennis player, nice guy. And he said, John, I can't pay you when you're in bankruptcy.
You can't play games, you can't pay anybody. They tell you who gets paid and so on. But I'll tell you what I'll do. Here's the to the lead closet and you could go ahead and take whatever you want. And I'm like, that was better than nothing.
So I had a 1988 Turbo Cabrulet. It was midnight, blue camel interior, midnight piping, big tush on the back, big wing. I love that car. It was beautiful. And that was my first Porsche. And I went into that lead room, and I just started loading stuff up.
I put the top down. I had them in the trunk. I had them under the seats, and the back seat filled up. The front seat, the pasture seat filled up. And I was driving up Glades Road, which is the main thoroughfare here in Boca Raton, up to my condo in Boca West.
I had a two story ah townhouse. And as I drove up Glades Road, leads were flying everywhere. And anyway, I took everything upstairs. I had them in a closet on my second floor, and I had a balcony up there.
I had an extra bedroom, had a Jacuzzi. And I had no job. And I had just started a brand new job, and some guys from this commodity firm that didn't like me because I fired them, they were dirty on the phone.
And I just warned them and warn them. I just said, hey, you guys got to go. So they went ahead and they had what's called a card deck. Card deck is a plastic bag that had 50 cards in it, direct mail pieces.
And what they would do is you'd mail them out, and then when you received the pack, you fill out the ones that you wanted, you sent them out. So it was a good way of advertised back in the old days. They took seven of these 50 card packs, and they put my name on all of them.
And they used a postage machine, a US post machine that used to be able to buy postage, and they stamped every one of those things. So not only did I get a call from the postal inspectors, and they already knew who did it, so that wasn't a big deal for me.
But the phone wouldn't stop ringing. Every one of those 350 cards, you requested information, blah, blah, blah. Five, six phone calls. I'm getting really pissed off. It's like, how am I ever going to do anything?
And I look at the closet and I look down, I see all those leads, and I say to myself, you know what? Every dark cloud has a silver lining. Hey. Yeah. The reason I called you is I'm in the lead business, and I have this and I have that.
I went ahead and went to office depot. I made copies, because back in those days, it was all copies. And I ended up doing $50,000 that week with leads and had plenty of copies left over to keep on going.
I took that 50,000, and I opened up an office in the boca raton, and I went on to that. Next year, I went out to make over a million dollars. I had a plaque. Thank you for John. I won't use the last name.
We're friends now, and Dominic, we're kind of friends now for your contribution and for doing what you did, trying to hurt me. And instead, they ended up giving me the best pump you could ever give somebody $50,000 to start up a brand new business that went on to be very successful.
So that's a pretty good story to tell you. Since then, we've been in the lead business. We did a couple of deals, and I just felt uncomfortable doing these deals because I could never trust the guy whose deal it was.
I ended up working for a security attorney. I figured, how could I possibly go wrong? We were doing a communication deal. The FCC was giving away these licenses, and we were making investments for people to do stuff like specialized mobile radio, which is police and fire.
And then they had interactive TV that actually became they did an auction. And anyway, the security attorney out of dallas, texas, went south on me, and he ended up getting busted. And I just said to myself, you know what?
I've had it. I thought for sure, if I work for a security attorney, how could I get in trouble? And I almost did. It was close. So I just said to myself, I had 20 guys selling that deal. And then all of a sudden.
We shut the deal down. And then we had one guy selling leads for Federal Union, and we went ahead full blast, and we started Salesleads TV with 20 guys on the phone, and and we kicked ass. I mean, you know, sales Leads been around for 34 years.
We've done over $25 million in sales. I don't know, maybe ten years ago. I had a sales manager, whatever, maybe 20 years ago. And I was in Cuba courting a young lady. I ended up marrying her, and we stayed married for seven years.
And while I was in Cuba courting her, this guy was ripping me off. He embezzled a quarter million dollars. And long story short, and that's a great story, I ended up putting him in jail. He made his restitution.
I got every penny back. But I said to myself, you know, what the hell are these people? I got to watch them. They steal from you. They have bad habits, and I just have to motivate them all the time, and I'm going to do this myself.
So I moved from a 5000 square foot facility to an 888 square foot facility, me and two other people, three other people. And that's what we've been doing ever since. And not quite the same numbers, but the headache was gone.
Most of it, anyway. You still got to deal with the clients, you guys. But anyway, the journey has been dynamite. COVID came around a couple of years ago. Two or three years ago, we shut the office down, and I wish I would have done it sooner.
I work out of my house. My girl Addie works out of she's the manager. She manages the database, the office. She works out of her house in New York. I've got Sergio behind me, and he works out of Boca Raton also.
And we all work out of our homes. And it's just a lot better for everybody. And I've become a lot more profitable because I don't have all the overhead that I used to have. So it pretty much gives you an idea what's been going on as far as health issues go.
I had a six double bypass in 2000, and 122 years later, I'm still here. I died on the table, by the way. Three or four years ago, I had a colomoscopy. They said, don't take any baby aspirin I i didn't listen to him.
I I kept going, but for three days, I did stop. He said, I don't want you bleeding too much, you know, if I have to remove any polyps or whatever. And the day after the operation, he wouldn't let me work out, and I stroked.
I drove myself to the hospital, had my body gone, and they gave me a TPA shot, told me to pray. And I got it all back. So God loves me. God blesses me. I'm not a religious guy. I'm a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn.
But I'm a spiritual man. I've been cleaning sober 40 years in July. You see that little AA back there? That's what that's about. And I got to tell you, AA NA Allen on really giving my life back. I mean, it's just tremendous.
Transition the biggest gift I've ever had in my life. It's the biggest accomplishment of my life. To stay clean and sober almost 40 years is ridiculous. I mean, I was a big party animal. I was in the record business.
Really crazy. And today I get to help people stay clean and sober, and it's a beautiful life. Integrity there's a lot of stuff comes with it. You actually finally become a man, and you finally have a standard operating procedure that's righteous.
And most of the time, I'll never be perfect, but most of the time, do the right thing. So there you go. You've got it. With the oil and gas industry falling apart because of who at the helm and this crazy, crazy political stuff that's going on right now, which makes me sick to my stomach, I feel sorry for the generations left behind.
I mean, um, I lived in Cuba two years before Castro came in, and this feels just like when Castro came in, and two years later, we fled that country. And you see what happened to Cuba. I'm telling you, that socialism and all that insanity.
And I don't want to get political on you, but I tell you what, I'm a patriot. I attract patriots. And and I'm not down with what's going on right now. It's affected my business. But you know what? I'm like the ever ready bunny.
I just keep on going. I keep on trucking. I turn negatives into positives, and I do the right thing. If you have any questions, feel free to call me. You got it? 32 minutes. A 34 year journey of John Fisher at Salesleads TV.
Have a beautiful day. Thank you for your time and God bless.
