The sacrifice of summer sales

Its 2 a.m. and I cant sleep so I decided to update everyone on the craziest summer of our lives thus far. I came over to APX ALARM in January 2008- I decided to build a team with my good friend Kyle Fransen. We chose our territory in Yonkers, New York. It covered Yonkers to Manhattan. It looked to be very promising and a great market to sell alarms. On April 10th, Kels, the kids and I left our beautiful home in Lehi, UT and set out on a three day drive to NY. 2400 miles later we arrived in Yonkers. This was one of the views from our apt window. The other side was of the Hudson. A great place to live.

Or at least we thought. To sum it up, after 2 solid weeks of testing the area, trying to map out crazy NY for a 4 month program, and after knocking lots of doors and having little success we made a decision to pull out. This has to have been one of the most stressful times in my life. Kyle and I had 45 guys showing up to work and the market proved less than reliable.Ahhhh what to do,where to go. Luckily for me, my long time friends Dane McCartney and Chris Cowhick had built a team in Rochester, NY. After two 12 hour days of driving to Rochester and back to NYC I decided to pull my team of guys and move to Rochester. I felt good about it. It had lots of ghetto and lots of church history. This is a pic I took of Hill Cumorah.

By the time we moved to Rochester it was April 27th and luckily I had retained all my sales reps and they all started to show up. For all of you who has never sold alarms or gone through a summer program before, this is what football players would consider hell week. Or in summer sales hell month. Training reps before and after work, knocking with 2-3 reps per day. The first month of the summer I hit 74 good accounts sold, it was a record for me. The team was producing great numbers.

After 2 months of knocking Rochester in the ground, we were forced to travel 200+ miles a day back and forth from Rochester to Syracuse. It was expensive with tolls of 7 dollars per day, an average of 4.35 per gallon of gas, 5 stinky men in my honda accord, and 5 other cars full of reps. For 3 1/2 weeks we drove everyday back and forth. It was horrible. It was so hard to leave work at 10:30 everyday, drive 100 miles one way, knock 7 hours, and drive back home another 100 miles.To top it off most of my Sales Reps flew out and didn't have cars so it forced to me take our only car we had out there. Kels was stuck in an apartment 100 miles away with our little demons.....I honestly don't know how she did it all day and kept so positive. Fortunately the sales were great in Syracuse and I hit the 125 mark while I was there. Well on my way for a record summer.

To rewind back to Yonkers, before I moved to Rochester I had my regional manager promise if we needed to, we could move to another city to finish the summer out. I was worried about not having enough market to sell in. After Syracuse we went back to Rochester and tried to re-knock it a third and fourth time. Sales for the team and myself became harder to get. We made our case and moved to hotels in Utica NY, I was looking for pics online to post of Utica and I found one of the homes that I sold.

To be honest, Utica is beautiful, but extreme ghetto. I have never heard more swear words, seen so many parents smack their kids, and seen more trash in the streets. I was walking down the road and I had a 8 yearold boy throw a soft ball size rock at my head! Luckily it missed. It was good selling but holy crap it was gross. All the homes where like this one, huge old homes that 5 families lived in. God would do well to wipe this crap hole off the face of the earth. But I guess it's good for my job so eh, lets keep it. Due to the size we only stayed a week and a half. During the time there we decided to end the summer in providence RI.
The team woke up at 5:30 am on Aug. 5th and drove 5 hours to Providence. The apartments are great except no furniture. We have now knocked 3 days in Providence and it seems to be very good. Rhode Island is so beautiful. So green and lush with trees. My team is currently sitting around 1350 good sales and should end at 1600 installs. I am personally at 170ish accounts and have a goal of 210 before August 30th.It will be a great year for us.

I want to thank Kelsie my amazing wife for being so dang supportive. It's not easy to leave your home, take another risk, move 5 times in 4 months, and never complain once. I am the luckiest man ever. Fortunately it all pays off when I can take 6 months off a year, and give us great financial rewards. I feel very blessed to be able to sell. It's what I want to do in some respect my entire life. Hopefully I will graduate off the doors soon. But until then I say give me ghetto and I won't complain.
So to sum it all up, since April 10th until now, which is 117 days, my little family of 4, has moved from, Utah, to Yonkers NY, to Rochester NY, to Syracuse NY, to Utica NY, to Providence RI. in 117 days. I have drove a total of 15,565 miles, which means everyday I have averaged 133 miles. It's been an adventure to say the least. We are better for it and are grateful for the lessons of life. It's never what it seems. I have come to learn over the 5 years iIhave done this profession that attitude in life is everything. No if's and's or but's about it. And as my Co-Manager Dane would say--"Excuses are for Duesches" Amen to that.



Here is what i want from anyone who reads this blog. I have 3 weeks of hardcore knocking left to complete. I need motivation as I am getting trunky. Please leave me your favorite quote, of short motivational story. Wish me luck! my cell phone is 801-372-5253 motivate me!!!

A trip to Utah and Idaho

Over the 24th of July we went to Jake's Grandparents house in St. Anthony, Idaho. Here's Jake and Kaylee on the private lake by the house. Josh holding his favorite girls. I made all of the i heart ny shirts for the cousins. It was fun to see them wear them at the parade. Jake went to this same parade as a boy. They throw out tons of candy, so of course that made Kaylee happy.

Jake and Kaylee at the St. Anthony rodeo.

Grandma and Riley at the rodeo.

Another one of us at the rodeo. We had a lot of fun.
After a few days in Idaho we spent some time at our house in Utah. Kaylee's favorite thing to do was water the plants.

Riley, Kami and Grandpa Grandpa at my parents house in Provo, Ut.

Besides trying to motivate myself to knock the next door in Rhode Island. I dream of my winter when I can go snowmobiling three to four times a week. This was took last year on one of our snowmobile trips.

Hill Cumorah Pageant

Last Thursday Jake took work off a little early so we could go to the dress rehersal of the Hill Cumorah Pageant. Uncle Kevin and his family are in it this year and suggested the dress rehersal to get better seats. The place accomodates 9000 viewers- we were in the front row! We got there early enough to visit with Kevin and Michelle and a few of their kids. Their costumes were stunning and you could tell they were ready to show off their hard week of practice. Each family member had a fun role for th show. Kevin was one of th preists of Noah. Michelle told us that during practice he was asked to tone it down! The boys were soldiers and did some pretty fancy moves with their swords. Hailey literally fell off the side of the set during the destruction scene and got soaked in the water. Don't worry, she was on a rope and knew what she was doing. My hat goes off to Michelle, the harvest worker. She told us she would be doing some dancing, but she didn't tell us how much! And since we were in the front row we saw all her expressions as she laughed at Nephi on the boat. I was quite impressed with her talent! Like an idiot I left my camera. I found these pictures on someone elses website- but they look JUST LIKE the ones I would have taken!

It might be hard to see, but the guy in the hat is one of the preists of Noah, maybe Kevin... maybe some other dude with the same costume.

Jesus descended from above on a rope. It lloked really sweet as he came down the stage glowing.
Michelle told us there were over 700 members of the cast. What a fun thing to be a part of.
We feel really lucky to be close enough to go to the pageant. It was a fun thing to experience.

For more pictures and info about the pageant go to http://www.hillcumorah.org/

4th of July and Lake Ontario BBQ

Since Jake was working in Syracuse on the 4th, me and one of the other wives, Marie, rented a car and drove up to spend the night and enjoy the holiday with our husbands. The fireworks went off at the New York State Fairgrounds. We found ourselves a little patch of grass, layed out the blankets and the treats and waited for the display. The girls loved it! Riley didn't make a peep, she just watched in awe. Kaylee got excited and named some of the colors as they burst. The were exhausted when we got back to the hotel, Good thing, cause we had a makeshift bed for Riley on the floor and somehow fit Kaylee's pack n play in the tub in the bathroom. I'm so glad we came up though. What is the 4th without your family! On Sunday the whole office got together for a sweet BBQ at the beach. The weather was perfect, the food was great, and the girls couldn't get enough of the water.

Way to go Jake!

Jake will probably kill me for posting this, but I'm so proud of him that I had to share this article with he world. On the APX website they highlight top performers throughout the company and below is what they had to say about Jake! The past two weeks they have been driving 1.5 hours one way each day to Syracuse. Needless to say I miss my husband! He has been working so hard this summer. Keep it up babe!!!



Jacob Dahl and the Rochester Office Reach New Heights
by Matt Pitts
June 25, 2008
Provo, UT - Last week was a huge one for the Rochester office. Not only did they break all previous records but they improved from their previous week by over 30 installs. 5 reps had their best week, and 5 reps had 10+ installs, but the true man behind the curtain has to be Jacob Dahl.Dahl has been consistent week after week, including two weeks of 18, and one of 19. Few reps can say they’ve installed 19 in a week, which represents just over 3 a day. After last week, however, 19 is old news – the old bar. In a huge feat of Apx greatness, Dahl put in 27 installs during week 8.Last week brings him to 141 on the summer, a stellar total even if he were to bagel every day the rest of the summer. Bagels don’t seem to be in the cards for Dahl, however, who the stats seem to project as one of those rare 300+ reps.

Lake Ontario

We brought the girls to Lake Ontario State Park and can't wait to go back! It was a such a beautiful day. Kaylee loved playing in the sand and getting her shorts wet in the water. We were shocked thhat she actually enjoyed sitting in it and touching it and getting in on her hands. Usually she likes the idea of it but gets nervous by the water or the messy sand. Riley liked it too. She wanted to put it in her mouth, but there were tons of tiny little shells and lake debris so it wasn't such a good idea. She put her feet in the water too and seemed to like it. Next time we'll put them in swimsuits and let them go to town.

We were pleasantly surprised to find a town fair going on right off the beach. There was music in the park, lots of food like you'd expect- funnel cakes, popcorn, polish sausage... all sorts of fancy fair food. We did not partake. Once we got closer to the fair we were remided of how disgusting those places could be. We held the girls tight looking for rides Kaylee was big enough to go on. Her favorite was the carousel. And our lucky day, there was an elk for her to ride! I will post soon about the obession in our home over yelk, binni and pincess deah's. Needlees to say, Kaylee love the carousel and would have rode it a hundred times. We ended the day with a few minutes at the park with slide and swings. The girls fell asleep as soon as we got home. Who knows how much they will remember, but me and Jake had a lot of fun being with them.

Rockin' Rochester

A few weeks ago we moved to Rochester, NY. It's about 5 hours north of Yonkers. It has been such a good move. It's better up here for Jake and it's definatley better up here for me and the girls. We live in a complex with parks and grassy fields and usually nice weather. Another bonus- we live about 30 minutes away from Hill Cumorah.

Me and Kaylee are standing at the backdoor of Joseph Smith's house. The door was locked cause we got there early, but we peeked in the windows. It made me so grateful for the apartment we lieved in, even though we were without furniture for 2 weeks : )

Me and Riley are on a bridge over the river that Hyrum Smith was baptised in. We are walking toward the sacred grove.

Me and Riley in the sacred grove. It was such a perfect day. The grove is so peaceful and beautiful. We liked it so much we came back the next week.
Kaylee was feeling the spirit. She wanted to get on her knees : ) Not really, she just was squatting to copy me while I took the picture. Because of our sudden move we had to wait on getting our furniture. We got pretty creative making forts out of moving boxes and watching movies on the floor.

For Kaylee's birthday (she turned two on May 9th) we took her to a nearby mall that had a huge indoor carousel. She loved it. I think we rode it 5 times, a different horse each time. Are you loving my roots in this picture? I just dyed my hair back to brown, but you'll have to wait for pics of that.
This is the little meadow across the street from our apartment. We walk through it to go to the park where the swings are. But I think she has more fun in the grass. She was in love with the dandelions. In this meadow we've seen a bunny, lots of groundhogs, birds and the ultimate... Binny!!! Bambi is Kaylee's most favorite movie, so she about dies when we saw a deer about 25 feet away.

Just to compare- this is the park that we used to go to in Yonkers.

Did I mention we live right by the Erie Canal. How coolis that! Last Sunday we took the girls to the boardwalk to feed the ducks.

Our little girls are becoming best friends. There is nothing better than hearing them make each other laugh.

Riley 's teeth are coming in!!! This is a frequent expression for Riley cause she is always snorting and always drooling.
We are really enjoying our summer here. We have one month down and Jake is doing better than ever. He has installed 77 accounts and can't wait to bust it out next month. He is motivated and on track to hit his goals. We are so proud of him and always look forward to the time we get to see him.