(Newswire.net — January 19, 2018) — It always inspires me to come across entrepreneurs who are always on top in their businesses and crushing their goals. Alberto Riehl of DreamSource Consulting has been able to defy the odds and prove that with a dose of hard work and dedication, you can crush it in your business too.
I got the chance to interview Alberto to find out how he dived deep into his business and learn from his journey as an entrepreneur. Here’s the interview:
What problem does DreamSource Consulting solve and why is it important?
We help Insurance Agents and Agencies install a predictable system for generating their ideal client. Over 85 percent of agents in the insurance industry fail and the #1 reason they fail is that they don’t have enough qualified prospects to see.
Even experienced top agents share with us that come January 1st, they are deathly afraid because they have no idea where their clients are going to come from for the oncoming year. DreamSource Consulting completely solves this.
Who’s your target audience?
Insurance Agents, Insurance Agencies and Insurance Companies.
Would you share how you got your first customer? How long did that take?
My first customer came very easy because I had become well known within my Insurance company as the #1 Producer out of more than 12,000 Agents, so Agents and their managers were always asking me what I was doing. This evolved to the Insurance company asking me to do national trainings for them which I was very happy to do since I really enjoyed it.
You must have worked really hard to get your business to great heights. How many hours a week do you usually work? Could you tell me your schedule from start to finish?
My hours are crazy! I’ll go on spurts of working from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. so I can travel with my family – which is another passion. However, when I’m improving on the product (Predictable Premium), I’ll spend 2 weeks in a row working: 18 hours a day filming, recording, editing, doing what ever it takes to get the job done.
Now here’s a three-part question:
1. With regards to funding, how did you fund your business?
2. How hard was it?
3. How much time did it take to acquire those funds?
The first 3 years were tough, worked a lot and took all the business I could to keep cash flow coming in. No funding from outside sources. I used sweat equity like Mark Cuban did, using my first few clients to help fund what would eventually become our program which is called “Preditable Premium”.
Today, because of the quality of Predictable Premium and the amazing results, it’s been consistently getting our clients. The largest Insurance companies in the industry are flocking to us. Met Life, Prudential, New York Life, State Farm, Allstae and Farmers – just to name a few – are all clients and they keep referring more and more offices to us.
Did you quit your job? If yes, how long did it take before you decided to quit? What made you decide it was time to quit?
As stated previously, I became well known within my Insurance company as the #1 Producer out of more than 12,000 Agents, so Agents and their managers were always asking me what I was doing. This evolved to the Insurance company asking me to do national trainings for them which I was very happy to do since I really enjoyed it.
Doing these trainings made me realize that I was very passionate about helping Agents develop and helping their business get to the next level. Agents started sharing their improved results with me and thanking me for helping them, which really got me addicted to it.
I decided I wanted to spend 100 percent of my time training Agents since that’s what I really love to do, and today I feel very grateful to be able to do that.
Just like everyone who undertakes a venture, I’m sure you made a couple of mistakes along the way. What are some mistakes you made and how did you fix them?
All the so-called “gurus” out there in the digital world have their main focus on marketing. If you look around, that’s what all the teaching is about…
“How to get clients online with Facebook, SEO, etc. “
So the main mistake I did, was to follow what everybody was doing and just worked on getting good at marketing and what happened was that I put less focus on product quality.
It was when I switched the focus to improving my product to the point I absolutely knew that not only was it better than anything else out there. It’s actually 5 years ahead of any so-called competitor that my business began to grow exponentially on its own through referrals.
What’s one piece of advice you’d like to give the aspiring entrepreneurs who will be reading this?
My advice is to know in advance that it always takes longer than expected and is more expensive than expected. Top entrepreneurs agree that you can have a beautiful business plan, but it ends up going out the window pretty quickly and you have to rely on your courage, discipline, resourcefulness and a lot of hard work. Keep going. Never quit!