#salestrainer

Welcome to "Selling with Sabine"! Your host, Sabine Taylor, is ready to guide you through the captivating world of affinity marketing and its potential misuse in scams, particularly in the real estate sector. This episode is perfect for small businesses aiming to keep their sales reps compliant and individuals trying to avoid scams. Sabine shares her personal experiences, offers practical advice, and even discusses cybersecurity issues like doxing. This episode is a treasure trove of insights that listeners won't want to miss. Join Sabine on this enlightening journey!

Sabine, the host and producer of the "Selling with Sabine" podcast, is a consumer to business sales expert with a wealth of experience work for tech companies, including telecommunications and cybersecurity. She holds an Adult Learning Graduate certificate and utilizes her Instructional Design Graduate program knowledge to design and develop sales training assets such as job aids, micro e-learning courses for her clients.

Transcript:

Welcome to "Selling with Sabine." I am your host, Sabine Taylor. Today, I will be discussing affinity marketing and how to protect yourself from affinity marketing scams. Disclaimer: Throughout my career, I have gained experience in various roles within the tech industry, which has shaped my opinions on certain topics. However, it is important to note that the information I present today is solely based on my personal opinions, and I do not represent any organization or company.

I want to clarify that I am not an attorney, nor am I providing legal or financial advice specific to your situation. Additionally, I am not acting as a forensic accountant for you or your business, and I am not your consultant. If you require assistance with legal or financial matters, I strongly recommend seeking the expertise of a reputable licensed attorney and accountant who can help you navigate and resolve your specific issues.

With that being said, let's now return to the subject at hand. Affinity marketing is a type of marketing that targets people based on their shared interests, such as their profession, religion, or ethnicity, to make you feel like you're part of a group or a movement, with the ultimate goal of generating sales.

If you follow celebrities and social media personalities, you might have come across some influencers who support real estate gurus who engage in deceptive practices on their platforms. These gurus use sneaky sales tactics, like appealing to your cultural identity through affinity marketing catch phrases, to entice you to make a purchase. They may even incorporate assumptive selling techniques, assuming that you have already been sold on their product without giving you a chance to decline. For example, if a real estate fake guru is speaking, it may sound something like this: "You want to set up a legacy for your children's children’s, children, right? So, since you want to secure a future for your legacy, it makes sense for you to partner with us on this real estate deal, where you can become a part owner of this investment, right? So, to make this happen, let's sign this contract now, get that generational wealth. Let's do it for the culture, baby. Started from the bottom, now the whole team here!"

Now that we have a better understanding of affinity marketing, this week several real estate gurus, influencers, and celebrities were called out by their victims for using affinity marketing catch phrases and assumptive selling techniques to influence their massive audience to give up between $100,000 to ¾ million dollars to purchase a stake in a real estate venture that never materialized for many investors in the way it was sold to them.

As a sales trainer, when I listen to these gurus, I can easily identify the sales tactics they are using. With that said, I have worked with Fortune 150 companies and their sales teams where I have listened and observed conversations between a customer and a sales rep. If I heard anything like what these gurus are saying, then an emergency town hall meeting would be scheduled for all employees, leaders, complaince directors to hear that these selling techniques are not allowed. End of story, period. Also, as someone with a real estate license, I can tell you that some of these things that are being said by the gurus would not fly in front of a real estate or governance board in any state. But in fact, it would be grounds for them to lose their license.

When making high-stakes purchases, it's essential to focus on how the product or service meets your needs, then ask relevant questions and don't hesitate to seek detailed explanations to make an informed decision. Doing this is better than getting caught up in a catch phrase tied to affinity marketing tactics.

To avoid getting scammed, consider investing in your education by enrolling in courses or seeking certifications from reputable schools that offer reasonably priced continuing education programs in real estate. However, if you choose non-university options like coaching programs or courses, ensure that the instructors have no direct or indirect financial stake in the business you're getting into.

Additionally, it's advisable to maintain an arms-length transaction approach and not rely solely on recommendations from realtors for vendors or contractors. Some individuals in the industry might hesitate to provide you advice that could potentially affect their referral business. For instance, I once followed a realtor's recommendation for a mortgage broker, but I sensed both of them were pressuring me into purchasing a home. However, when I sought advice from a different mortgage broker, they advised against proceeding with the deal. As a result, I decided to cancel my contract with the real estate agent, and unfortunately, the realtor never returned my earnest money. So, I had to cancel the check with my bank. Nonetheless, since my new mortgage broker had no conflict of interest with the realtor, I found peace of mind knowing that I made the right decision by walking away from that deal.

Additionally, during open enrollment periods, many companies offer benefit selections include prepaid legal benefit plans. These plans provide access to licensed attorneys who can offer valuable expertise they can advise you on legal and customary practices within various areas of the law, including real estate, to help you identify deals that you should avoid. In a previous position, my employer offered a prepaid legal benefit that covered services like mortgage reviews, consultation calls, and attorneys' fees associated with real estate closing. So, having on-demand access to attorneys provided me peace of mind about my real estate transactions without incurring the high hourly fees typically charged by attorneys, which can range from three hundred fifty to five hundred dollars. With my plan, I just played $9 every two weeks.

Shifting my focus to cybersecurity, I've noticed that influencers and celebrities are discussing and arguing about the real estate fake gurus and their scams. Some even resort to doxing the scammers. However, it's important to understand the potential legal consequences if you're a business owner and publicly exposing alleged scammers. So doxing individuals by revealing personal information like the address, date of birth, or social security number on social media can lead to legal trouble and significant fines for your business. The alleged scammers also have the option to hire a privacy attorney and take you to court for doxing and exposing their private and sensitive information to the public. Therefore, it is advisable to address the matter through legal channels with the assistance of an attorney who can represent you in court and initiate the discovery process. This process involves obtaining a court order subpoena to access financial credit reports, tax records, and detailed phone records. Your lawyer can then use these records to present their findings to the courts.

Now, for the scammers, it's important to note that the discovery process can be very expensive, especially in class action situations. The petitioners or parties involved in the case may request reimbursement of attorneys' fees plus applicable interest for the costs associated with obtaining legal counsel. Considering this, legal fees can be much higher than the damages you owe from scamming. Additionally, the longer you delay addressing the situation, the more you will have to pay in legal fees.

In highly regulated industries like finance and real estate, keep in mind that government involvement is common. Also, governments have liaisons assigned to them at major companies who can run various types of reports and utilize AI tools, also known as artificial intelligence, to synthesize information about your financial and communication activities within seconds. Therefore, it is advisable to work with a lawyer to find a way to compensate your victims.

To sum it up, if you are a company, it is important to follow standard industry practices to ensure that you and your sales staff sell your products and services in a compliant manner. If you need assistance in sales training and enablement, you can find me on LinkedIn by typing in my name, Sabine Taylor, where my name is spelled out as 'S' like success, 'a' like achievement, 'B' like beautiful, 'I' like intelligent, 'N' like nice, and 'E' like excellence. In the search results you should find Sabine Taylor, "The Sales Training Architect." Once on my profile page, scroll down to the featured section to access free resources like videos on sales tips and my 5-Step ChatGPT prompt generator template in a PDF format. So that way, you can coach your sales reps and keep them compliant when selling your products and services.

With that being said, I am known for helping sales reps use legally approved language to help them pitch complicated products and services in a way that helps the customer understand how it would help them solve a problem.

So, I appreciate the time we spent together, and I hope you found value in this episode. If you can share this episode with your friends or family members who are pitched by various people to buy products and services, it may help them avoid scammers.

One last thing, if you could support this podcast by subscribing to it, then that would help me grow this channel and if you make your way to my LinkedIn profile, consider following me there as well.

With that said, have a wonderful day, everyone, and catch you on the next episode.

 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thesalestrainingarchitect/

 

Data Protection Wednesday: Guarding Your Data in the Age of AI - Lessons from My Personal Data Breach Journey!

Join me on a candid journey as I share personal experiences of data breaches in the era of artificial intelligence (AI). Discover practical insights and conversational tips to effectively safeguard your valuable data. Let's navigate the evolving landscape together and ensure the protection of our digital lives.

Sabine, the host and producer of the "Selling with Sabine" podcast, is a consumer to business sales expert with a wealth of experience in Fortune 150 tech companies, including telecommunications and cybersecurity. She holds an Adult Learning Graduate certificate and utilizes her Instructional Design Graduate program knowledge to design and develop sales training assets such as job aids, micro e-learning  e-courses for her clients.

Transcript:

Welcome to Selling with Sabine. I am your host, Sabine Taylor. On this show, I usually discuss sales-related topics. However, today I want to shift gears and talk about the importance of security and AI, also known as artificial intelligence. It's a crucial topic because many people are taking advantage of these tools, and it's essential to have a serious conversation about the safeguards that should be in place to protect ourselves. So, stay tuned.

Let me take you back to 2012 when I received a message from my bank on a Sunday asking me to call them back. Initially, I assumed it was a sales call, so I ignored it. However, they kept calling me, and for three days, I kept ignoring them. But I finally decided to call back on a Thursday. That's when I learned that someone had obtained and duplicated my bank card number. Being in the tech industry, I was familiar with fraudsters, so to prevent my information from being stolen online, I never used my bank card for online purchases. However, I realized that the incident might have occurred when I handed my card to a waitress at a restaurant who possibly made a copy when she went to pick up my food in the kitchen. And around the same time this happened, I learned that an employee at a company that I used to work for had been under surveillance for three months, and she had used a similar method. So, this helped me understand how my data was breached.

Several years later, I was contacted by a hospital security official to discuss a data breach that had occurred. Someone apparently used my credentials to see an OBGYN. Because of this, I signed up for all types of monitoring services. With this in mind, I started to become very curious as to why all of these events were happening to my data. In my research, I learned of a role at a cybersecurity company, and after applying in 2016, I was extended an offer as a sales training specialist, teaching other sales reps how to sell cybersecurity products. In this role, staying updated on trends was crucial. This involved reading threat reports and gaining access to all of this information made me greatly aware of cyber threats. As a result, I started implementing the advice I had been training my reps on, such as changing my password frequently. Taking these proactive measures to protect my data instilled a stronger sense of security in me.

Fast forward to the first quarter of 2023, I began receiving multiple email and text alerts notifying me that my data had been discovered on the dark web. In case you're not familiar, the dark web refers to obscure websites operated by cybercriminals who sell stolen user information. These websites have a short lifespan as threat detectives actively seek to shut them down. Consequently, these cybercriminals aim to maximize their profits by selling usernames, passwords, and social security numbers from prices ranging from $5 to $50 before their websites are taken offline. So, as I pondered my online activities, it became apparent that the increasing alerts were a result of signing up for multiple AI accounts. So, I am not going to name the platforms that I use because I cannot say 100% for sure that the discovery of my data on the dark web is tied to them. But what I can tell you is that in the first quarter of 2023, I signed up for many AI accounts, and at the same time, I'm receiving these alerts. So that's how I'm putting two and two together, and I'm pretty sure that one is related to the other.

Now, I started to do some online research to stay informed about cyber threats and AI platforms. And what I discovered was quite worrisome—the risks involved with cyber threats are very high on these platforms.

Also, since many of these sites are free, I wonder what money do they have to pay for a security team to monitor the traffic on their sites 24/7 days a week. From my knowledge in this field, when an app developer provides a user a service for free, it is in many cases to get the user to accept the terms of service. Then, once they have our permission, they will sell our data to a third-party company. That third-party company then makes more money by reselling the data they just obtained from these apps. So, the big issue is... is that if we download the wrong app, our data could end up on the dark web.

Realizing the potential dangers, I took proactive measures to safeguard my information. I decided to freeze my credit at all three credit bureaus, requested my bank to issue new credit cards, and informed all relevant financial institutions about the data breaches involving my stolen data. While these tasks did take some time to complete, I wanted to avoid a situation similar to what I went through back in 2012, where I had to take time off work to deal with the administrative tasks related to a data breach.

So, what does my story mean for you? Well, it's important to understand that there's a whole lot of sensitive data floating around on AI platforms. These tools are great for making things more efficient, but they also come with a higher chance of data breaches. If you're thinking about sharing your private info like email addresses and passwords on these platforms, it's crucial to think about getting an identity monitoring service. Trust me, you do not want your information falling into the wrong hands and ending up on the dark web. It is simply better to be proactive.

With that said, it's time to wrap up today. I appreciate the time we've spent together, and I hope you found value in this episode. If you could help me reach a wider audience, I would be so grateful. So consider following this show and liking this episode. You can also find me on LinkedIn by typing my name, Sabine Taylor, where my name is spelled out as "S" like success, "a" like achievement, "B" like beautiful, "I" like intelligent, "n" like nice, and "e" like excellence. In the search results, you should find Sabine Taylor The Sales Training Architect. Once on my LinkedIn profile, scroll down to the featured section to access resources like my 5-Step ChatGPT Sales Coaching Prompt Generator Template for sales supervisors and several short videos on sales tips. Also, you can message me on LinkedIn for your business-to-consumer Sales Enablement training request. So, that's it for now. Have a wonderful day, everyone. Bye-bye.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thesalestrainingarchitect/