“I wanted to spend more time out there procuring business, working with partners, rather than sitting in my bedroom just kind of working on things all day and not having a lot of contact. I just feel like the biz dev role for me is where I do a lot better. But because I spend so much time with affiliates, I resonate with them. I understand what they need. I understand what they’re looking for. And I understand a lot of what they struggle with.”
— Manny Zuccarelli, CEO of QuoteVelocity
Manny Zuccarelli (Website: QuoteVelocity.com) grew his company, QuoteVelocity, from zero calls to a multi-million dollar Pay Per Call business in under a year. Launched with a mission to provide real-time web and live transfer prospects for their customers, QuoteVelocity generates leads and calls of consumers seeking assistance in financial, automotive, and healthcare verticals. With an emphasis on connecting the right customers to the right clients, QuoteVelocity boasts over a decade of success under Manny’s watch.
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Focus on Short and Long Term Opportunities
“What we really ran into was a case where I think that rather than focusing on both short- and long-term business, I was constantly focused on obtaining partnerships with companies who in hindsight, I should’ve known would take six months, a year, to nurture. And so in the interim, you’re kind of sitting there and you’re sort of spinning your wheels and you’re trying to find your footing in a new space.”
Always stay on the pursuit of both short and long term opportunities. You can trip yourself up on the road to success by stepping over long term success in order to stay hyper-focused on short term success. There’s no shame in a short term win, but you’ve got to allow yourself to have a growth mindset which requires long term planning.
Don’t Allow Your Intuition to Go Unchecked
“You expect yourself to just kind of know what to do intuitively, and in hindsight, it’s really ignorant. It’s extremely ignorant to think that that’s how things are going to go because in most cases, they don’t … I know that may not be so specific to the space, but I mention that because I think that it’s something that anybody … will probably resonate with to some degree and realize that it’s not just them, that it’s something we all go through.”
The fact is, regularly going with your gut can be detrimental to your business. A lot of new business owners can find it challenging to resist intuition rather than developing a more consistent process. This is an easy trapping to avoid, and an important one to be aware of. Your gut can only drive a successful business so far, if at all, and at the end of the day a steady process lends itself to reaching long term goals and growth.
Putting in Hours vs. Getting Things Done
“It’s easy to conflate putting in hours with getting things done, right? So it’s more so, what are you achieving in that time? But this is the thing. In order for you to actually get to a point where you can achieve more in your space in a shorter period of time, you have to put those many hours in. Unless you’re comfortable with things just taking way longer than they should, you have to make more mistakes in a shorter period of time.”
The hustle and grind mindset is great in theory, but in practice it can paint your processes too broadly. Yes, you should hustle. Yes, you should grind. But let’s not forget that the critical component to your success is simply this: getting things done. Are you putting in the hours, AND getting things done? Constantly task yourself with this, because a lot of success is built on striking that balance between working hard and working smart.
Adjust Your Lifestyle, Be Healthy
“I counter that with lifestyle changes in the way that I live, the way that I take care of myself, the food that I eat, the fact that I train. I just, I counter all that with other stuff. I don’t spend my weekends wasted. And of course, the argument there is, ‘Well, there’s plenty of people who don’t live that way that still achieve great things.’ It’s like, okay. I get that, and that’s just about as ignorant as saying that there’s people who smoke that don’t get cancer.”
Running a business is no cakewalk, and having a wealth of industry-specific knowledge is simply one aspect of thriving in business. The best countermeasure to all of the mental exhaustion that comes with being in business is a healthy body, and mind. Sparing you the specifics; you’ve got to give yourself the opportunity to eat healthy and move around a little bit each day, stay in shape, walk 10,000 steps – whatever you’ve got to do! The impact of a healthy lifestyle is practically indescribable, and definitely invaluable.
Create Content, Educate Callers, and Provide Value
“Actually providing some degree of value and information to the customer, and that wouldn’t be a win as much of just like a shift in the way that we do business and in the way that we generate traffic. And one of the things that I just think is really important is that you really kind of know where your place is in the ecosystem and what your goals are because anything that’s going to drive you revenue that quickly is probably not going to last very long.”
You’ve probably heard that there are no shortcuts in life at some point. When it comes to business, this is an important mindset to live by. Don’t just cut corners! Planning for the long term requires consistency, and the foundation of consistency is quality. Always ask yourself whether you’re providing value or not. This is the ultimate litmus test; if the answer is “no,” you’ve probably got to go back to the drawing board. Create quality content, educate your callers, and always provide them with value.
Final Thoughts: Create an Internal Disposition Key for Assessing Call Outcomes
“What we’ve done to review it is we’ve developed an internal disposition team … or internal disposition key. We would not have developed that if I didn’t sit there and listen to every possible outcome of a call, like all of them. So consumer said this. Agent responded with that. What I found was we initially had reps taking notes. I would take notes. We were all taking notes on what was occurring on calls and then I was like, “Okay. This is insane to navigate,” so what we developed were these two-character disposition keys, essentially outlining– so, say, for debt settlement, qualified debt would be QD, right? Unqualified income would be UI, just to give an example.“
We found this to be an awesome tidbit and glimpse into the QuoteVelocity process. Here Manny advocates for what he calls an “internal disposition key,” which enables his quality assurance team to stay more focused on the substance and assessment of recordings, rather than taking notes the entire time. This system allows the QuoteVelocity QA team to assess and assign caller disposition on the fly, all while keeping their attention undivided – keeping their QA process on point and in-depth.
