← Listing Legends

Appointment Setter Hiring

Status
in-flight
Tier
Tier 1 — Operating business
Owner
Ryan Colston
Started
2026-04-16

One-line description. Hire 2-3 PH-based setters via OnlineJobsPH. They book 15-min qualifying calls with me, not listing consults.

Why

First hire for my own production play. Not a team-wide hire.

If it works on me, the model rolls out to the team. If it flops, I learn what doesn't work before infecting other agents. Setters call homeowners from a list, follow a script, and book a 15-minute qualifying call with me. I qualify. The agent runs the consult. Setter is the connector, not the qualifier.

Current state

Pipeline now at APPS-254 across two inboxes (ry@ + ryan.colston@). 2026-05-26 closed a 40+ candidate backlog with 79 outbound sends in one session (see 2026-05-26-post-mortem).

Funnel: 3 Hired (Anthony, Theresa, Joshua), 1 Offer-sent (Samuel Padilla), 17 in interview-invited or scheduled state, 4 pass-w-referral pending Marissa booking (Keziah, Froilan, Tessa, Miguel), 6 resubmit-requested (mp3/m4a needed), 34 rejected today.

Wave 7 (5/26 AM): 11 invites split Marissa(6)/Brandon(5). Wave 8 (5/26 PM): 3 invites — Khanyisa Ndenze (Brandon), Tinashe Gwatiringa + Kirana Casey (Marissa). Thu 5/28 interviews booked: Kimoy Beckford (5:30pm CT), Rafferty Ojeba (11pm WAT).

Next 3 actions

  1. Lock comp (per-set $, per-close $, Sr SDR rates, dial ramp) before Thu 5/28. Single highest-leverage item.
  2. Run Thu 5/28 interviews — Kimoy + Rafferty. Be ready with comp answers.
  3. Decide 6 resubmits by 6/2 (Hrishmica, Leigha, Mughees, Marion, Anab, Geovanna) — 7-day window then standard regret.

Post-mortems

Tooling

Decisions log

In-project decision log:

Date Decision
2026-04-20 Role: setters book 15-min qualifying calls with Ry, not consults. Ry qualifies, agent runs consult.
2026-04-20 Hormozi SDR titles (Jr SDR → SDR → Sr SDR → SDR Manager) over playbook tier names
2026-04-20 Per-action pay cut from playbook: $5/set (was $10), $25/close (was $75). De-risk offshore hires.
2026-04-20 Dial volume: 50/shift week 1 → 500/shift sustained ceiling. 4.5 hrs/day dial time.
2026-04-20 Interview audio: no time limit, 3 questions. Cuts performative brevity.
2026-04-20 Vault is source of truth for one-pager + email templates. Gmail drafts are derivatives.
2026-04-20 Landing page on Cloudflare Pages (setter.rycolston.com), not Ghost.
2026-04-20 "People who ghost" removed from Not-For list. Posturing at readers who haven't failed.
2026-04-20 Payroll section on one-pager simplified. Platform talk belongs in onboarding.
2026-04-20 Web Properties registry created. Same-day-update rule.
2026-04-20 Email templates extracted from Gmail to vault. No persistent drafts.
2026-04-20 Inbox archived (9,096 messages).
2026-04-20 Wave 4 sent. 17 interview invites. 0 errors.
2026-04-20 Filter lesson: switch to behavioral detection (attachment + voice-note + OLJ window), not subject keywords.
2026-04-20 Gmail filter expanded for real estate caller | cold caller | inside sales.
2026-05-07 Pre-onboarding meeting pattern between offer-accept and Day-1 (06-pre-onboarding.md). Sports-team tone, defer logistics to live meeting.
2026-05-07 Single-step pass-w-referral with link included supersedes two-step "reply yes and I'll connect" (08-pass-with-referral-direct.md). Joshua/Tessa proved 72hr latency on the handshake step.
2026-05-07 Close-the-loop regret distinct from generic rejection — for shortlisters who ghosted the interview booking (09-regret-ghosted-shortlist.md). Honest about reality, not "rejected for quality."
2026-05-07 Offer email no longer carries pay/hours/start-date in the body (04-offer.md rewritten). Pay is locked from interview/audio thread; offer email is celebratory, not contractual.
2026-05-07 Hire-via-referral path: candidate passed for Ry's direct team but referred to Marissa, who hires them. Same program-wide pre-onboarding, Marissa picks up day-to-day (07-pre-onboarding-referral-hire.md). Joshua first instance.
2026-05-22 Ack template asks for source attribution ("where did you hear about this role?"). Reason: 17 of 26 new candidates in Wave 6 came in via Remote Latinos / Torre.ai / WWR with no posting attribution in the email body — Pipeline column E ended up "Unknown." Asking up-front backfills the column without analyst overhead (01-received.md).
2026-05-22 Pipeline column Q is now the single stage source-of-truth for Wave 4 onward (Hired / Interview / Pass w/ Referral / Received / Rejected / New). Previously only the Stage 2 tab tracked Wave 4 transitions. Earlier Wave 3 historical rows still show "New" since no closeout emails were ever sent to that cohort.
2026-05-22 Pipeline reality check: trusting blank stage as "unprocessed" leads to duplicate sends. Always cross-check against Gmail Sent (label:Hiring/Appointment-Setter/New from:me) before sending acks. Banked as feedback_verify_ack_state_via_gmail.md.

Open issues

Risks to watch:

References

The role (TL;DR)

Setter calls homeowners from a list. Follows the script. When the homeowner is willing, setter books a 15-minute qualifying call with me. I qualify. The agent runs the consult and signs it.

Setter ≠ qualifier. Setter = connector.

Role and pay snapshot

Wave log

Discovery questions (audio recording, no time limit)

  1. Last calling job — numbers (dials/day, sets/week, conversion)
  2. Script commitment — yes/no, will you run it word-for-word for 90 days
  3. Monthly earnings needed + what you'd do with it

Live interview adds: 60-second cold-call role-play + coachability retry after one piece of feedback.