Build and Sell a 7-Figure Business (Like Trent Dyrsmid)

January 14, 2020

Trent and I are brothers from another mother. We’re both 43. Our wives are pregnant. We both spent time in the Air Force then jumped into commissioned sales. We both sold direct to consumers, sold retail, sold financial services and high tech.

In 2001 Trent started his own business that sold technology services to small businesses as a virtual IT company. He cold called his way to $800,000 in sales then referrals kicked in and shot his business up to $2,000,000 in annual revenue.

A key insight for Trent was selling a service that was consumed and purchased on a monthly basis. It creates a type of annuity for your stability and sanity.

He was a “Profit 100” fastest growing company in Canada for a couple of years ago. He and his partner had different visions so they sold the company and Trent went into semi-retirement for a few years.

Trent met his wife while surfing and she was rather savvy in digital marketing and he has now jumped into his new business, Bright Ideas.

Trent’s diverse career spans from the need to have big challenges. (And I can attest to that as well.) He and I were thrown into the deep end of the pool (with a phone and the White Pages) and forced to sell or die.

As a child, Trent grew up on welfare in a cheap apartment with crappy furniture and fighting spouses. He came to “equate poverty with violence,” which lit a fire under him to succeed.

He did not go to college so for Trent, “the way to wealth was to be a salesman.”

Trent didn’t know how to do the stuff he sold but he knew how to make cold calls and qualify and overcome objections and get the order. He knew how to be a Rainmaker.

Growing up poor makes you hungry.

“You can literally alter the path of the rest of your life if you’re willing to do something most people are too chickenshit to do.”

Great marketers come from great sales careers.

To get started today, leverage social media. Follow people you want to network and do business with. Retweet their content. Mention them. Comment on their blog. (Get a V.A. to do this for you for $3.50/hr.) Within a week or so they’ll notice you and you can begin a real dialogue with them to form a real relationship.

Videos and podcasts are great ways to build engagement with prospects and people of influence. Then Tweet “@” them and get noticed.

The big downside to making cold calls vs. creating content is that content is an asset that can last forever and can be leveraged for multiple sales.

Follow a strategy of content creation that supports the outbound efforts.

It’s a mindset.

The conversations that happen because you are in business will take you to the gold. But you have to start, don’t just sit around and read and watch and listen, waiting for the perfect idea.

“Version 1 is better than Version None.”

“You need to be sales and marketing focused if you are going to be successful.”

Trent wrote his first book in 10 days. (Now get busy.)

The goal is to create a funnel that is so good that you can increase your paid advertising and still turn a solid profit.

Trent used to invest $20,000 per year to be in high level Masterminds so he took what he learned there to start his own Mastermind Elite.

His new book will be out Dec 12, 2013. You can check it out at BrightIdeas.co/book.

Learn more about Trent Dyrsmid at his blog. 

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