Day #4 Trying the 9x12 Method Side Hustle - Live In-Person Sales!

Auto-generated from the video, lightly formatted. Expect a few typos.

Welcome to day number four where I take you on my 9x12 journey. And for those of you that don't know me, I'm Jose Morales, a 9x12er guy who shares his struggles and wins in my 9x12 business. And right now what I'm doing is just a quick little walk to burn off the breakfast that I just ate. And today is Monday. So here in a bit I have my daily accountability call.

On this call I just share one personal goal and one business goal for the day. And I would say that you should be doing this. And you can do this with a friend, a family member, or maybe even just record yourself saying your goals for the day. And if the goals end up being too big or you know, life just happens, just set that as the goal for the next day. Doing this, in my opinion, is going to help you stay on track.

But I'm going to go ahead and finish this walk and then I'll jump on that quick accountability call. Jose. So today, my personal goal is to hit the gym. later on tonight more than likely. And then as far as business goes, uh I'm going to go visit local businesses to talk to them about my postcard, see if I can get anybody signed up today or at least get some interest or something.

Yeah, that's awesome. That is awesome. I got that accountability call out of the way. So now I'm heading over to FedEx. I'm going to go get some of my info packets printed off because I'm going to go ahead and hit the streets today and visit some local businesses.

And I apologize if my camera is shaky. I'm driving right now. But let's go ahead and go over here and get some of these uh printed off so we can visit some businesses today. I just pulled up to FedEx. I'm going to go in there, get these printed off, and I'm not an accountant or anything like that, but uh make sure that you guys are tracking your expenses.

So, this is going to be a business expense. Now, what I'm the software that I'm using is Wave. It's a free accounting software. And by no means am I a pro at it, but at least I am putting in all my expenses that I accumulate throughout the process. The other thing, too, is that I track my mileage when I'm out visiting businesses.

I make sure that I'm jotting all that down. This way, by the time when tax season comes, I have all this information already ready to go. And, you know, cuz I am running a real business. This isn't a hobby. I just thought I'd throw that in there.

Again, I am not an accountant. I'm not a bookkeeper. So, you know, just reach out to, you know, an expert. But this is what I'm doing for for myself. But anyhow, I'm going to go in there and get these printed off.

Okay. So, I got my my info packets ready to go. Well, kind of ready to go. So, now I have to sit here in the car and I'm going to put it together. I even brought my I brought my paper clips with me and I'm going to put this packet together.

And then I'm also going to put my business cards on on there as well. And then we'll go ahead and start hitting some uh local businesses and we'll see if we can get anything. Now, before I do any of that, this is all new to me. I'm not a saleserson and going to these businesses. Sometimes I don't know if I'm saying the right thing or I don't know what the holdup is when it comes to why am I not getting people to actually jump on it.

Uh, part of me feels like I am doing it right since I was able to sell a double slot and that was $900. So, just not sure what's happening, but you know, I just got to keep knocking on doors and the more nos that I can get through is getting me closer to that. Yes. Just like I talked about in one of my other videos where that double slot that I sold, I was about to give up for the day. I was pretty burnt out because all day long it was nobody was taking me up on the offer and then finally at the end of the day I got that one.

So I was pretty excited about that. Unfortunately I haven't had another bite, you know, as far as somebody actually saying, "Hey, you know, take my money." And that's what I'm trying to get to. So yeah, I'm going to sit here in the car and start putting the these packets together so I can go and start knocking on some doors. So I'm going to go ahead and do that and we'll see you here in a bit.

So, I'm at my first spot. Looks like this strip center has a few insurance agents. So, let's go check that out. I wasn't able to lock anybody down. However, the insurance agent that I talked to gave me some referrals.

So, I have one, two, three, four contacts uh that he gave me that I will be able to reach out to. So, that was a win. And then the other win you could say was this uh phone repair place, but he needs to talk to his brother cuz his brother's a partner. and you know, I'll just have to follow up and see where where we're at. I'll give him a few days and, you know, circle back.

Now that I know his name, I'll be able to just pick up the phone and give him a call and just kind of start the the nurturing process that way. I'm going to go ahead and go to the strip mall, the strip center that is across the street from this one, and we'll see if we can get anything going there, or maybe even get some more referrals. So, I just pulled up to a looks like they sell parts for trucks and Jeeps and stuff like that. So, accessories. I'm gonna go ahead and walk in here.

This is a standalone building. We'll see what happens. I don't believe this is a national chain or anything like that. So, let's go check it out. So, that was a nogo.

Well, I wouldn't say nogo. He He did take the time to grab the or look up the phone number to their corporate office. I'm gonna go ahead and give them a call. Um, but uh I'm going to go ahead and go to this next strip center and see if there's any uh local businesses there. Obviously, this one was kind of a chain type of thing or or a companywide type of business.

So, I'm going to go ahead and go on to the next one. But, at least now I have a contact for this one. And he said a lot of their marketing is done online. So, maybe they'll be open to doing some print marketing. All right, let's go ahead and check it out.

Hello. Hello. Um, my name is Jose and I'm a local business owner and I was just going around seeing if I could uh have other owners here that I could talk to or he's only here on the weekends. Okay. All right.

Like what would be a good time like one of those days or or I guess when what is a good time for you guys like when it's like not is Yeah. I don't want to come here. Saturday afternoon. Okay. And what was their name?

Uh, the owner Lance. Lance. Okay. All right. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Hello. How are we doing? Hey. Um, my name is Jose.

I'm a local business owner. So, I was uh seeing if the owner was here or somebody that you just missed him by about 3 minutes. Really? You should be here. You should be able to expect him tomorrow.

Tomorrow. Like what would be a good time when you guys are like not like not too busy? I think this time right now. Okay. And what was his What was his name?

100% sure if you're going to see it's two business owners. It's Alex and then the other one's Eddie. Okay. Alex or Eddie. Yeah.

All right. I appreciate you. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay.

So, there's a few more shops that I'm going to go into. So, let's go check them out. Hello. I don't know if you can hear me with the music, but uh my name's Jose. I'm a local business owner, and I was looking to see if either the owner or manager was around that I could be here till Monday morning about 10:30 a.

m. Monday 10:30. Yeah. Okay. No worries.

They'll be here for about 30 45 minutes. You said what time? 10:30 and 11. Monday morning. Monday.

Okay. What was his name? Gotcha. Okay. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Hopefully you guys had a good lunch. Did you have a good lunch? Awesome. Yes, sir.

Hello. My name is Jose. I'm a local business owner and and I was just what was your name? Belinda. Belinda.

Nice to meet you, Belinda. Nice to meet you. Um, so I'm basically just uh looking for other business owners that would want to partner up in a a direct mail campaign. So, what I'm doing is I'm putting together this postcard here. So, this is just a sample and I'm sending out about 5,000 of these.

Okay. It came out to like 4,994. So, six short. So, almost 5,000, right? So, I'm just looking to see and and and I'm going to have like non-competing businesses on here.

So I just figured, you know, an insurance display those. So the US post office will be uh in the mail. Yeah. Will be in in the mail gated communities can't really go uh flyers, you know, or anything like that. So you can bypass all that with being on the postcard.

So as an example, if you guys were to sign up, then there would there wouldn't be no other insurance agency on here. So unlike unlike Valpacker magazines where they put your competitors in there, you would not have that. you would you wouldn't have that here with what is your cost for that? So, and I have everything right here. Here's a packet.

So, here is the the prices. Is that a onetime deal or how many times did they go out? So, it's a so it's a onetime deal and there's no contract. So, if you were like, I don't want no other insurance agent to be on this card, then you can just every month, you know, do it. But, but the minute that you were like, hey, I don't want to be on it anymore.

Then that opens the door for another insurance person until they decide, hey, I'm going to pause it. Right. Uh, so I have basically these two sizes right here. Uh, so this one and then this this bigger one that's a double. Yeah.

Uhhuh. Okay. So the owner will be in uh later in the week. Can I keep this with him? This is your correct.

Perfect. Okay, man. Everybody's hitting me up for advertising this week. Yeah. Or last.

Well, you're the first one this week, but I had a lady last week that her son does magazines. Okay. And puts magazines out somewhere. I I didn't go to magazines. Yeah.

No, the way nobody reads magazines. Well, so for me, I'm always like and I don't know if they're going to mail those magazines out. I don't know if they're going to put them on a rack because I mean there's there's like, you know, because there's both of those where sometimes they put them on a rack and all that, but I'm just like, who's going to pick them up and then then you got to then they got to open it, you know, and if you're not on the front, then it's Yeah. So with this one, it's like the minute that Have you do you normally at your home, do you get anything this big that comes through your mailbox? Did I recall?

I don't think so. So, so with this, it's just like they open up a mailbox and it's, you know, attention grabbing and there's no envelope to open like a mail pack and there's no magazine. I have to sit there and flip through the pages to try to find you just like that. Yeah. So, it be just like this.

So the other so right now I have some restaurants that are going to be on here and and think of it as it being sticky because if somebody for example is not in the buying cycle for insurance but now because there's restaurants people are going to hold on to it and now you get to piggy back right off of them and stay in the in the home longer. And then this would kind of make seen more as a resource because it's just like, oh, here's all these all these local businesses in my backyard with so it could end up being on somebody's fridge, too. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Right. Versus a magazine that that it's not going to be on the bridge.

That's pretty cool. I'll get with him and see what he says. I'll give you a call either way that way because I don't like to leave people just I I greatly appreciate that. But but yeah, that'd be awesome if you guys could be on it and lock that in. But, you know, that'd be cool.

I think I like that idea. Honestly, that's probably you're the first one that's presented something that I actually on um their menu. So things like that, you know, I like those things that didn't require a whole like all of this. Yeah. So So I'm eliminating the friction, right?

The friction points. The friction with the magazine is like somebody you got to hope that somebody picks it up. Yeah. Another friction point is you got to hope that they flip through the pages. Another friction point is that they find you before they find a competitor.

So this one is just like you open up the mailbox. What is this? Yeah, there you go. So, instantly you're going to see it and Okay. Awesome.

Awesome. And and I hate to trouble you some more, but by any by any chance, do you know any local businesses in the area that would you feel that would be a good fit for this? Let's see. Anybody like that you would be able to refer me to? Have you been next door to Mission Barbecue?

No, but I'm trying to keep it as much local as pos as possible. It just kind of depends, but I already have a barbecue restaurant. So, so the lady over there, it's um Nana. Okay. She cuts my hair.

Um she might would be interested. Okay. You know, I don't know if it if the law goes into effect for sure tomorrow, but whenever I went and got my haircut last week, uh the ladies were in the uproar over there because effective July 1st, I thinking all requirements for cosmetology school. Oh, so if I wanted to go open a shop tomorrow to cut hair without a license, I could. So maybe she might be interested in some advertising at the moment.

Gotcha. Just to put that in your ear. But these salon ladies are now they're a little angry right now too, I'm sure. So be careful. Well, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, no, I think I did hear something about that, but in my head I'm thinking, and I'm sure there's probably a lot of people that probably learn stuff on YouTube or something. I don't know how you would learn to cut hair, but Well, I was, you know, how those hair ladies talk and they, you get all the information from those places when you're in there. One of them was actually on the phone with state boards or something.

I don't. Yeah. I mean, it was so beware if you go in there. Gotcha. Okay.

But as far as anybody else, not really cuz they're they're your basic. Okay. You know, I get my nails done down here. They're really good people. Okay.

But as far as the rest of it, it's all chained stuff up or everybody knows it. Okay. Awesome. And you said, and which one was it? the it's across the street and tell her Belinda at the insurance office you over there.

She might text me. Why are you sending people? Stop sending people over here. Sending people over here. You know, we're mad today.

Oh, you know what? They may not be open on Mondays. Okay. All right. Hair salons may aren't open on Monday, but she might be.

I don't Okay. Yeah, I can I can swing over there. Just give give it a quick check. Okay. Well, I definitely appreciate your time over there.

And uh it's nice and cool in here, so hopefully it's not too hot when when you guys uh head out. It's kind of humid. I had to go to my car a few minutes ago and it was a little humid. I had to crack my windows, but yeah. Yeah.

They're trying not to know while I'm walking around. Yes, exactly. All right. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Good luck. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. I see you guys are busy.

I was just looking to see if the owner was here. The owner? But I see you're busy. The the owner of this place. Oh, um, well, I'm a local business owner and I just wanted to talk to the owner about some marketing, about some advertising.

No. Okay. All right. Thank you. You can have a good one.

Okay. So, I just uh went into the strip mall here, went into the local businesses. There's a couple of uh chains in here, so just made sure I went to the local businesses. However, that insurance agency, I don't know if that one was a local one or not, but I walked out of there with a with a with the lead for the salon, and it almost sounded like she is the one that kind of gives the information over to the to the owner. Hopefully, you guys were able to hear where she was talking about how people have been coming in there trying to pitch advertising to them, but what I'm pitching is completely different.

and is and she liked the whole idea, the whole concept. She mentioned the restaurant next door and it's a it's like an old school diner and they have those tables that have all the different ads on them and they also have those menus that have all the ads on them and then they also have a TV that has all these ads on it. Hopefully you guys know the kind of little diners that I'm talking about. And with that one, um, I need to come back on Monday. That is when the owner will be there.

And let's see what else. Then, as you heard, there's also at this nutrition kind of like a I don't know if it's a smoothie shop or something. The owner will be there uh this weekend. So, I'll need to come back this weekend. It's only Monday, so uh I got a few days.

And then I'll come back over here on Saturday. See if I can catch the owner and talk to him. And then I got to come back over here tomorrow and see if I can catch one of the owners from the phone shop that I went into. So there's two owners, two partners. So I'll come back tomorrow for that and see if I can catch them and see if uh I can get anything out of that one there.

So there's still quite a bit of uh different strip centers that I can go to. Um, you know, since I've been doing this, I've been going to a lot of them and in my head I'm thinking, okay, where's where's some other ones at because I feel like I've hit all of them. So, I'm at another strip mall and there's a tanning salon that had reached out to me on Facebook. So, I'm going to since I'm here and they're actually in the strip center, I'm going to go ahead and go follow back up with them and see where they're at. See if they have any questions.

Hopefully the owner's here, but only one way to find out. Got to go in there. All right, let's go check it out. Hello. Hello.

Is Christy here by chance? She's not. She'll be at the tomorrow morning. Yes. Okay.

All right. I appreciate it. Thank you. You're welcome. Hey, uh I'm Jose.

I was here two weeks ago. When you guys get here, sir, it's Monday and you guys all keep soliciting stuff on Monday and we're extremely busy. I apologize. No, no, no. You don't need a party.

Can I Can I? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Our phones are ring. No, no, no.

That's a good thing. I appreciate you. Thank you. All right. Well, no luck so far.

So, the owner wasn't here. The owner's going to be at another location, but that other location's like 30 minutes away from here in a completely different city. I'm going to have to just reach out to her. probably have to give her a call and see if I can reach her that way. And then there's another insurance spot here in the strip center, too.

And this is my third attempt of trying to talk to him. And every time that I go in there, they're busy. And it was the same thing as as you heard right now. But this time, I just decided to go ahead and just give them my information packet. And this information packet that I did this time uh is nicer.

It's cleaner. It's like a brochure almost. It's in color. So, we'll see what happens with this one. Uh, but it seems again every time I come to every time I try to talk to this insurance agent, like they're always on on the phone.

Uh, but anyhow, all right. Well, I'm going to I might hit a few more places. Okay. So, I'm sure you guys are going to give me some feedback down below and let me know how I'm doing, right? So, I'll be looking forward to those comments.

again. This is the first time that I am like going out and trying to offer something like this and I don't know I I'll eventually get it and you know obviously I'll take the feedback and I'll work on implementing that feedback into my approach. Uh but you know it's uh really hot outside which I much rather have the heat than the than the cold winters. But now I'm probably going to go and do some more and we'll see if I if I get anything uh on this next round. But I'll catch you guys here in a minute.

What I'm doing right now is I am driving around the zip code that I'm going to be sending off these postcards. And the reason for that is I'm looking for the names of each gated community. I won't be able to get all of them, but as I'm driving by and I'm seeing those, I'm writing those down. This way, when I when I'm writing an ad or when I'm writing a post or when I'm talking to local business owners, especially home service businesses, I'll be able to call out specific neighborhoods. And more than likely, it's going to be the home service businesses that are going to be uh more familiar with the names of each neighborhood, especially these higherend neighborhoods.

And I think, you know, I'm hoping that that's going to be another thing that I can use to help me. But so far right now, it's still a struggle. But that's what's happening to me. There's there's a lot of other 9 by12ers that are having amazing luck, whether it's through email, whether it's going, you know, in person, but there's somebody out there that's having success. And then there's some of us like me that, you know, we're we're having a hard time.

And I did think about maybe switching to different suburb. But, you know, it's times like this right now where, you know, it's very draining. It, you know, you start to get down cuz you're like, why are other people having this amazing success? Which, you know, especially when they start talking about that they're selling two, three cards at the same time in a matter of weeks. And then here you are trying to do one card and you're just on the struggle bus.

So yeah. So right now uh to be honest with you, I am feeling pretty down and I'm just like, well, let me go and drive around and write down the names of some of these neighborhoods. I was trying to do it on Google uh at one point, but I couldn't uh figure out how to pull up the names of these gated communities, and I hadn't gone out to actually drive it and see. But right now, I got have 11 different gated communities that I'm going to be able to call out and use while I'm talking to business owners. And there's a lot more than that, but that's a good start.

And the other thing too is I have my I have the the map from the po from the from the post office, but it's in it's in black and white and it the quality of the printout wasn't that great. So, I'm just trying to make sure that I'm not going to a spot that's not actually on one of those routes that I have on there. So, I was being really careful with that piece. Don't let my journey discourage you if you haven't uh jumped into the 9 by12 uh industry yet into this niche. It doesn't mean that what's happening to me would would be is what will happen to you.

Like I said, there's a lot of other uh people that are doing the 9x12 that are having amazing results and that's what I'm after. And eventually I'm gonna hit it and you know once I hit it and once I'm able to sell that first card then hopefully it'll be smoother sailing. But right now I am on the struggle bus. It is uh depressing but you know the only thing I can do is keep going and keep trying to figure out my messaging. if my messaging is off.

Keep trying to figure out my approach. The other thing I think that I'm that I'm going to do is I'm going to pull a list of all the new businesses that have opened up in my area in the I'll probably start off with the the last 30 days maybe. Or you know what, maybe I'll do the last 60 days. I think that's what I'm going to do. I don't know if I'll be able to if I'll be able to pull um businesses specific to the zip code and if not I'm I'm just going to have to just reach out to them anyways or go over there and kind of go from there.

But as you guys saw, I went out there and wouldn't say that I didn't get anywhere. I walked away with some with some referrals and whatnot. So, but that's all I got for right now. Yeah, like I said, just cuz I'm not having the success right now doesn't mean that you wouldn't have the success. Maybe you would be one of those that jumps into the 9 by12 uh niche and all of a sudden, you know, you sell out a card within a week or two, but there's only one way to find out, and that's for you to do it.

Just like the only way for me to find out if I was going to be able to do this in, you know, x amount of time frame was to actually go out and do it and I'm doing it. And that time frame for me is not as short as it is for some others. If this is happening to you, if you're currently doing the 9x12, would love to hear it. Would love for you to, you know, drop a comment down below and let me know if you're also on the struggle bus. Uh, and if you're having success, you know, drop down drop that below and maybe give me some pointers cuz like I said, right now feeling pretty down, but I'm not going to let that stop me.

I'm going to hit the gym and then that should that should help me out. So anyhow, I will catch you guys on the next