Curtis Matthews

Today I went to my first BNI breakfast in Tampa. The group’s name is the Movers and Shakers. They meet every Tuesday at Emerald Greens Country Club in Carolwood Tampa. Bmi is a networking group with hundreds of chapters world wide and being new to Tampa I decided to look into joining a BNI group so I could start networking with business owners and other professionals.

I was told that each BNI chapter only allows one position for each industry and since I am in the wireless industry I had to find one that did not have a wireless consultant in their chapter. I went online to search all the BNI chapters close to where I am living in Tampa Florida and I was very lucky to find a chapter that meets 10 minutes from where I am living and one that would not conflict with my schedule.

BNI is very strict about attendance. They meet once a week and you can not miss more than 3 meetings in a six month period. The philosophy is that if you are not attending the meetings and following the rules the whole system they have will not work.

BNI is not a lead source they give genuine referals that are prequalified to some sort. The club members do a one and one with each other to get to know each other and trust that when they refer a colleague or friend that the referral is going to someone who is trustworthy and good at what they are doing.

This is one of my first things that I plan to do in the Tampa area for self promotion. I want everyone in Tampa to know I am the go to guy for mobile phone and devices and that’s why I am the mobilewiseguy.

I relocated, and my new life is now starting to take shape in Tampa Florida. After all of the confusion of moving and looking for business opportunities things are just starting to normalize. I know that I am a very diligent and hard worker, I love my work and I am great at what I do, because I am very knowledgeable of all the products, and I am a people person.
Almost all my clients that I have dealt with over the years and who are still faithful to me would attest to my sincerity and knowledge of product and service.

That brings me to my business now, I have been a wireless consultant for most of my life. I coined that name back in the late 80s when multiple wireless providers started to come on the scene. When looking for different business opportunities I look into this company Cellular Sales and liked what I heard and saw so I decided to become an independent contractor for Cellular Sales the largest indirect agent for Verizon Wireless in the United States.

Cellular Sales has over 300 store nationwide and has plans to have over 1000 stores in the next few years and I want to be a part of that growth. My experience, background and some mentoring by the elite Cellular Sales associates should propel me within this company.
The most important thing I could do is to market myself so I can sell a lot of Verizon Wireless cell phones first then train people (other independent contractors) to sell a lot of Verizon phones then finaly duplicate this process with others.
I want to use technology and the web to gain clients and promote my business. Over the years I have earned the name Wireless Consultant on the first page of Google and Verizon Wireless Consultant on the first page of Google and yesterday I realized I also have Verizon Cellular Consultant on Google also. What does that mean and how can I use it to benefit me to sell a lot of cell phones for Verizon? I am in the process of seeking a good web person to help me with social media. I will write about my experiences and how I am achieving my goal here on my personal Blog.

The last few days I have not posted anything new because I was doing the Thanksgiving holiday thing. We drove to Tampa Wednesday night after working. We left from Pembroke Pines, stopped and picked up dinner at Romeus Cuban restaurant and took the food to go. Our drive took us 4 hours so we got to our destination around midnight. After eating and drinking all day on Thanksgiving we drove back around 6pm because I had to work the next day which was black Friday the busiest shopping day of the year.
Since I am in the retail business and cell phones are a hot ticket item for the holidays I had to be prepared for the potential business that we might have gotten. I had an idea that we would not be as busy as the malls or the big box stores and we did not have any loss leader offers to get the crowds at our location.


The day was busier than I had expected mostly upgrades and customer service issues but at the end of the day we were profitable and did not have to drop our pants.
I did turn away a lot of customers asking for the Apple iPhone or free Blackberry 9700s. We still don’t sell the iPhone and the Blackberry 9700 in the store is definitely not free.
Well I need to work on my Blogs this weekend and put sales online for the various cell phone deals offered. So check out my Blog http://mobilewiseguy.com for the latest deals on cell phones and the best plans available.