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David J.P. Fisher is in your business, literally, and he wants to make you a rock star.
As founder of the Evanston-based company, RockStar Consulting, Fisher works to kick-start a client's professional career. People come to him looking for ways to be more successful at their jobs, and Fisher counsels them in ways that therapy and self-help books cannot.
"The definition of insanity," Fisher said, "is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting something different to happen. I act as support and hold [clients] accountable. They bounce ideas off me as they would go to a priest or bartender in the past. Now people go to a coach for support."
The Chicago area is teeming with these "business coaches" who offer training in anything from personal fitness to dissertation practice for doctoral candidates. It is a business that is hard to quantify but profits off the simple happiness, and increased productivity, of its clientele.
Fisher started RockStar Consulting in 2005 with the idea of giving people "their rock star moment."
"The fun of being on stage is just 5 percent of the job," Fisher said. "I help with the other 95 percent."
RockStar consulting offers one-on-one coaching, "tele-coaching" conference-call coaching and seminars for businesses. Fisher said he has about seven to 10 individual clients at any time and generates most of his business by referrals and word of mouth.
But Fisher faces tough competition for clients as he competes with other coaches. The professional coaching field has boomed in recent years and is close to becoming a $1.5 billion industry worldwide. The International Coaching Federation was founded in 1995 and between 1999 and 2006, the number of members in North America surged up 81 percent. Chicago's own chapter, the Chicago Coaching Federation, has about 350 members with a 700-member mailing list.
"People are more interested in their quality of life," said Faith Curtis, President of CCF and her own coaching business, Personal Power Coaching. "They're trying to reach a goal but can't on their own and their old ways have not worked."
Fisher, 30, found his entrepreneurial spirit selling Cutco Cutlery during his junior year of college at Northwestern University. Cutco Cutlery, most famous for its brand of knives, does not sell its products in stores, but through the hands of young salespeople-mostly legions of high school and college students. Fisher became a rock star in his own right with Cutco. He said he earned about $250,000 selling Cutco, to become one of the company's top-10 sellers in the country. He went on to manage the Chicago office for Cutco. At 22, he was "running the show." He organized the office, paid the bills and trained as many as 110 new sellers at a time.
"It taught me how to run a business," Fisher said. "I got experience at 22 that most people don't get until much later in their career."
Being in charge and handling all the struggles and stress that accompany being an entrepreneur made him comfortable running a business, he said. It also gave him experience training people in sales.
"Many people out of college get thrown into sales right out of college," he said. "As the economy becomes more of a service economy, sales becomes more important as a market base. And too many people see 'sales' as a four-letter word."
Fisher described how he helped one client who worked in real estate and was afraid of making cold calls. He met Fisher through an Evanston Chamber of Commerce event and the two developed a program to make cold calls less often.
"We worked to develop partnerships," said Fisher. The networking helped his client search for customers without resorting to strangers. In spite of the recent housing slump, Fisher said his client just had his most successful month ever.
Fisher's clients split evenly among men and women, he said, and range in ages from 23 to their 60s. Fisher could not say how much he charges clients because it varies, but other coaches charge from $350 to $650 a month. Fisher said he wants his services to be a struggle for clients and a stretch financially.
"If they're getting it cheap," he said, "they won't take it seriously."
Therapy, Fisher insists, is not part of the contract. He does extend beyond the scope of business to take a "whole person" approach, incorporating business with personal life. But he does not dwell on the past.
"If kids picked on you in school, great," he said. "Now where do we go from here?"
Fisher is working with two interns from DePaul University to market RockStar. He is publicizing an e-book coming out in August called "The Book of Habits" and he is developing a MySpace page. But business for Fisher grows best when his clients come back happy.
"Talking to clients six months down the line," Fisher said, "when they come back and remember what they learned, that's the best."
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Ok, this guy sounds impressive. But he made his name at Cutco? I'm not sure what to think about that. Back when I was in high school I, like thousands of other lazy youngsters, looked into CutCo. It sounded like a great job, but wasn't what it appeared.
Their ads, to start with. While other job ads promised $7/hr or maybe even $10/hr, Cutco's ad promised $15.95/apt. Unless you're reading carefully, your eyes will edit out the "apt." and you'll think "wow, that sounds like a good job." So I've always thought that was a little sneaky.
I attended one of their screening sessions that all potential sales reps attend, I drove a half hour to South Bend, Ind., and sat through a sales presentation from whoever was running their office. He showed off the knives. I was sincerely impressed. They seemed like good, well-designed cuttlery.
But then he explained the sales process. My job was to sell these knives to my family, friends' families and anyone that they knew. This didn't strike me as odd at in the moment, I was too caught up in all the money I thought I was going to make selling these nifty knives. Also, I had to buy my sales kit from them...?
But when I told my parents about the sales pitch and how I was going to make a ton of money that summer, my dad sat me down and explained that CutCo was just looking to exploit the family and friend connections of bright, ambitious youngsters. He asked me whether I wanted to turn friendly relationships into business relationships. I had no interest in using the people I knew so I never called them back. I wonder how much of Vector marketing's profits come from selling to their salesmen vs. selling to actual customers.
So anyway, I have no reason to doubt this guy made $250,000 selling CutCo. And I have no reason to doubt his sales ability and business skills, but man...he made that $250,000 in one of the skeeziest ways I can think of. I don't know if that would keep me from hiring him if I needed help, but it would definitely make me think twice because it casts doubt on his ethics.
Another CutCo alum online described it this way:
"You have to spend your own money on gas to get you to your appointments. There will also be mandatory meetings that you will be required to attend. You will also have to set up your own appointments and generate your own leads.
There will be some paperwork that you'll have to work on after each day, and you will also have to do nightly checkins. The paperwork you won't be paid for and it's a lengthy part of the job.
If your appointments don't meet their qualifications, you won't be paid, and you have just worked for free.
They also hired everyone in my group that interviewed. I went into the office one time and the same girl who said I was hired, asked me if I was there for the interview. They didn't even have any idea that I was an employee.
The management also put a lot of pressure on you to sell, and that adds to the stress of the job.
That said, you can still possibly make money if you make huge sales on every appointment. So if you think you can, it may be a good job for you."
And I'm not the only one who thinks CutCo and Vector Marketing are running a scam.
Vector Marketing is not a scam. It also isn't a traditional job either. There's no set hours, no real bosses, no offices, no dress codes. But, you get out of it what you put into it.
I worked for Vector for 8 summers during college and graduate school. I made a decent living, but I had to work for it. I also believe that I gained some valuable and practical experience that I applied to my post-school career.
Here is a petition denouncing the Vector Marketing Scam. I'm sure that a little research will also uncover countless others who are Vector success stories like me.
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