From Jobless to Top Salesperson At Kay Jewelers Pt 3/9

And during my time there I learned how much joy you can get from helping other people and there was tons of couples that I helped by a little anniversary ring and it was one of those feelings where, even if it was like a $500 ring or $1,000 ring, like people would be so happy, Like genuinely they'll come in with their significant other, their husband or their wife right, and they would just be so happy when they would get an engagement ring or when they would get a gift or someone. There was so much thought that went into it and that helped me appreciate sales. Conviction alone could get you a long way in sales if you truly believe in a product of service.

The journey to wealth is a long walk and some may walk quicker than others, but what good is sprinting to the finish line if you pass out when you cross it? On Walk to Wealth, we enlighten and empower young adults to build wealthy, abundant lives. They say the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and your first step starts right now. This is Walk to Wealth with your host, john Mendez.

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Walk to Wealth podcast. If you're tuning in on YouTube or any of the podcast directories, make sure to do yourself one favor and give us a follow, because I don't want you to miss any of the amazing episodes we have coming on this year. Without further ado, let's get right into this one. We're picking up the story. After college, I got fired from my first job. Now, the next job after that was in May 2020, when I started working at Sign of the Whale. But because I worked there longer, I'm actually going to skip that story and come back to it later and I'm going to share with you how I got my job at K Jewelers, which is my first sales job. So allow me to take you back in a time machine. So I started working at K Jewelers around January of 2021. Now, at this point in time, I was just coming off winter break. The pandemic was pretty much killing everything and I wasn't working at the restaurant job anymore because I got pretty much kind of laid off for the winter time because it's not as busy, so they don't need any bussers. So I probably wasn't able to work at the restaurant. So I'm pretty much jobless. I was learning a lot, you know, still into personal development, doing my stuff. So in the wintertime I got laid off from the restaurant because I was a busser. They don't really need any bussers. When there's barely any people in the restaurant In the winter time, my restaurant gets dead, and so I was pretty much laid off for the winter and from there. At that point in time, my entrepreneurial epiphany also already started. So it's the middle of the pandemic winter break and I'm just going hard with personal development, just going hard, hard, hard. And around January, as I said, I still didn't have a job at that point in time. So I decided to start going on, indeed, and started going on some of these job applying websites and I started applying to a bunch of different jobs. I think I ended up applying to 15. The only job that got back to me, for whatever reason, despite my amazing resume, was K Jewelers, and so so I ended up getting an interview with them. I remember like it was yesterday. So me and my boy AJ, we went over to LA Fitness over in Norwalk and me and him got to work out together. We went hard and then a way back home. We're about to head on the highway. We're like maybe a minute or two away from the highway. Me and him were chopping it up and arrived back, and from there I got a call and it's from K Jewelers and I forgot that I had an interview. And so I'm doing an interview on the phone while me and AJ well, aj was beating in his car and it's like I was like yo, bro, I got an interview and so he turned the music down and then I have a phone interview and the person that hired me a manager she thought that I was older than what I was, because, you know, I'm a little wise. And from there I ended up getting a job with K Jewelers and they're starting with them in February of 2021. And so I get a job there and this is my first ever one retail job and two, this is my first ever sales job. So I learned a ton and from there I started working out part time. I was working maybe 20 to 30 hours a week and I started off by training. I still remember, like as soon as I started working there, I got locked away in a room. I had to watch a bunch of modules on the iPad that had virtually no use, practical use in the actual store. It was just information. I guess I needed to quote, unquote, no. And I ended up working my way through the ranks and I ended up becoming top 10 in the district as a part timer and I also ended up making a big $4,000 sale, so two big gold chains for $4,000 or $4,000 total and I was my biggest sale that I made during my time there. So I ended up working my way and became top 10 in the district and I ended up learning a lot during my time there. So one of the things that I learned there is the skill of codecalling. And during promotional time so during February, during Christmas, during Black Friday we would always have to call people in our in the list, in the database, and so we would get a giant list of contact that we have to reach out to assigned to us and then from there they would give us a script and we would have to just start calling and calling people and trying to get them into the store. And for me I never called, called a stranger. It was a weird experience and never Called somebody and read off of a script, which was even weirder, and so for me it was something I wasn't used to at all, but after enough phone calls it kind of becomes a game. So I'm just I would tally mark every time I made a call, regardless of whether they picked up or not, and so I'm just tallying up, trying to see how many calls I can get to and how many calls I can get in an hour. Now just call, call, call, call, call. And one of the things that I learned about cold calling is you learn how to deal with a lot of different personality types over the phone. You'll come across a lot of interesting people on the phone and One day I remember we're doing this 30% off gold promotion and there's a couple other things that I forget and I'm cold calling. This one guy picks up the phone I think it's from a bridgeport and Me and him we start talking and I do my little pitch. It's like, hey, we got 30, 10%, 5% off this and 50% off that. And blah, blah, blah and we have 30% off cold. And he was like hey, what do you say? And I said we have 30% off gold. And then me and him we started just chopping it up and just talking about how he wanted to go with chain and how he was been thinking about it and how he wants like a big Cuban link and he was trying to get a feel for how much money would cost and he would just wanted to. You know we I got this big book of gold and just going over all the different designs for him and all the different things I could potentially do, and I'm just trying to. I wasn't really adept at sales at that point in time, so I would just having a conversation with a guy. There's no real skit, sales strategy or sales skills that I put into place to try and close him, and so he ended up deciding that he wanted to buy something. He said he was gonna come in. He ended up saying he's gonna come in on a Friday and they're not coming to the next Friday, and I ended up closing him on Entirely different gold chain. He wanted something that was too unique and they would have cost him a lot more money and Ended up getting him to go. Change that went with each other came out to like $4,000. I'm pretty sure the district manager was there that day, so I still have a photo. On my photo. I felt like the man and it was one of those feelings where it's like I was on top of the world for an entire day and during my time there I learned how much joy you can get from helping other people and there was tons of couples that I helped by a little anniversary ring and it was one of those feelings where, even if it was like a $500 ring or a thousand dollar ring, which isn't a crazy expensive not saying you have to break the bank, but it's like people would be so happy, like genuinely, they'll come in with their significant other, their husband or the wife, right, and they would just be so happy when they would get an engaged ring or when they would get a gift for someone. There was so much thought that went into it and that helped me Appreciate sales and that's also kind of why I wanted to get into real estate as an agent and I'll tell you guys the story of how I got into real estate. I was gonna be coming next, but more on that later. Anyways, I started helping people and I'm very easily it's something I enjoy doing. Although the jewelry wasn't my that cup of tea, I guess you could say I would always have fun and just it got me to see money differently, because a lot of these pieces of jewelry were very expensive, especially the diamond jewelry, and I'll let you know right now it's a little insider tip the markup on jewelry is so high it makes me never want to buy a piece of jewelry again, unless I'm an employee, like I would get a job just to buy Jewelry. That's how bad the markup is like. It is insane. But you know a lot of people don't know that, so I want to share with that. But you guys, so the eyes don't end up getting scammed because you'll buy these changes jewelry off of a, a retailer, and then you'll go to a pawn shop or something like that and then you'll get like maybe a hundred bucks for and you spent like a thousand just because they're going off of gold content. And so Be careful when you're shopping for jewelry, because you can easily get screwed over even if you go to a sale. You know a retail spot, a good spot, just because the jewelry is real doesn't mean you should be paying what you're paying for the jewelry. And so along the way, ended up getting my real estate license. And Now during that time period, man, I was just studying and I would have my iPad for work and I'll have my own personal iPad in front of it and I would just kind of finesse my way into Watching real estate trainings. I'll watch full estate videos or I have my phone up and I would whenever I could. I sometimes bring my real estate book From the exam so I can study that. And I was pretty much during September, after I was about six months in man, all my time really went into studying for real estate and when I was at work the only thing I was really thinking about was real estate. And eventually, once I got licensed, then I was on like actual training calls. While I was at the job at KJudas I would go hide away in a corner and hop on training calls so I could learn and just grow and just be absorbed the information. And, of course, my manager she kind of got, she kind of knew the deal and Fortunately she didn't say anything to me, whatever reason. She didn't really give me any trouble for it. She didn't get me, you know, she didn't Bother me about it, she just didn't really say much about it. So I'm very thankful and grateful for that. And then, towards the end of October of 2021, I ended up deciding to put my two weeks in because at that point in time was already two months into real estate, I was working like 55 ish hours and At that point in time it was 55 between the restaurant and KJudas, and at point in time it was just. Like you know, I'm not too sure that I Want to keep on doing this, especially now that I'm real estate, and I want. At that point in time, I was focused on trying to become the top agent ever, and so I was like you know, I want to put my two weeks in, and up to that point in time I never had a vacation time that I used. So my manager was like hey, you know, I just use your vacation time for the next couple days, that way you don't have to come in. And so today I decided to put my two weeks in. I also Never came back and it was bittersweet because it's like I was always there for a long time. What am I? My worker friends there, provee, actually ended up helping her son and daughter buy a house in Jersey. I connected them to a realtor, but probably was someone that was definitely gonna miss, and I made a lot of, you know, good connections and it's something that helped me to. It helped me learn a lot cage rulers and my biggest takeaways one was my first ever sales job, so I ended up having to practice sales and get better at scripts and learn. You know a lot about people in retail, a lot about people in different personalities and how to Keep them under control, how to close a sale. One of the biggest things that I was against while I was there is the K credit card. I'm if you know anything about me, I'm anti store credit card, anti store credit card. I believe no one should ever get a store credit card, ever. This is absolutely like zero use cases, for it is that unless you shop at that store. So I'm Entirely against, and usually the rewards are so limited because the rewards are only for that particular store. So I'm always against store credit cards. If you ask me, I'll never say otherwise at this current point in time that I'm recording this episode. But yeah, I hate store credit cards and we would get asked to help the, the customers, get store credit cards and, like me, knowing the personal finance being the financial guru that I am, I say that jokingly, but Knowing that store credit card aren't good for people, they would have to get it hard pull. I was like man, this could affect their credit and they're gonna get a store credit card. Make irresponsible decisions and maybe I shouldn't have overstepped right, but I would just say I didn't feel I didn't have enough conviction To sell people on the idea of getting a store card for K and in fact I usually would recommend people didn't get the store card when they asked for my personal opinion, and so that was one of the things that I didn't like you know doing. While I was there, I learned how to close deals. I learned the skill of code calling I also learned. But you can't sell what you don't believe in. That's what I mentioned about with the stuff with the credit cards. You cannot sell what you don't believe in. If you don't have that conviction, even if you're the best sales closer ever, people will feel that you don't feel for that product, their service, and They'll decide their decision based off of that. Like Conviction alone can get you a long way in sales if you truly believe in a product or service. And the last big takeaway I want to leave what you guys is that if your mind is somewhere else, you have and you have the means to leave, leave or figure out a way how to leave. Right, there's no reason to say any longer if you're in a job that you don't enjoy and you have the means to leave, leave immediately, or figure out a plan to leave down the road. That also goes for a relationship, that also goes for a friendship, that also goes for Things in life that are just failing, going down right and don't have any way of getting back up. But once you have your mind set on something else like for me, my mind was set on real estate. So, cage, you were just on the back burner for me, and so when I was at cage, you were all I was thinking about was real estate, and so I had the means to leave. I saved up a lot of money that summer and for me I had money saved. I had my money from my tuition and my financial aid that I didn't use because I wasn't rooming and boarding anymore, nor was I Paying for you know the meal plans. So I had a lot of money saved up at that point in time and I decided to leave, and it was Amazing decision. The timing was perfect and and don't regret it, not one bit. And during my eight months eight to nine months, while I was there I learned a ton. But that's how I got into K Jewelers, which my first ever retail job, my first ever sales job. And then we're gonna pick up the story. I'll tell you guys how I got into real estate, because that is a story within itself, so I'll let you guys know in the next episode and I'll see you then.

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