The Sales Mentor FTC Case: The High-Ticket Closer Pitch

The Sales Mentor was a telemarketing "closer" training programme sold by two Tennessee companies, Traffic and Funnels LLC and WE Capital LLC, owned by Taylor Welch and Christopher Evans. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued them in December 2023, alleging they told buyers they would earn $10,000 to $20,000 a month on average as high-ticket closers, with no data to back it up. Consumers paid more than $29 million for the programme between January 2019 and October 2022, according to the FTC's complaint. The defendants settled without admitting or denying the charges and paid $1 million for refunds. In July 2026 the FTC sent a second round of refund payments: 1,623 payments totalling more than $136,000.

So if you are searching "is The Sales Mentor legit" or "The Sales Mentor lawsuit", here is the short answer. A federal regulator says the income promise was false or unsupported. The company never tracked what its buyers earned. And the people who paid got back roughly three cents for every dollar.

Picture the buyer. It is late, you are scrolling YouTube after a shift, and an ad asks: "How is $10k+/Month Possible With This 'New Economy' Skill Set?" It promises to teach you "FOR FREE" and says it "only takes a few weeks to learn." You click. A confident man explains that business owners are desperate for people who can close sales calls from home, that the average commission is $600 to $1,000 a close, and that he can connect you to a waiting list of companies who need you. A few calls later, someone on the phone tells you that if you invest $9,800, "in three months, we'll get you on track to make $120 grand a year."

That exact sentence was said to an undercover FTC investigator on 12 April 2022. If you are stuck in a job that pays $2,000 a month and someone shows you a path to $12,000, you want to believe it. This page shows you what the record says about that path, and how to find a real commission sales job without paying anyone for the privilege.

Key facts about The Sales Mentor

Unless another source is named, the facts below come from the FTC's complaint, filed on 5 December 2023. A complaint is the FTC's side of the case. The defendants settled within days, so no court ever ruled on the evidence.

Is The Sales Mentor a scam? What the FTC charged

The FTC announced the case on 11 December 2023. It charged the companies, their owners Taylor Welch and Christopher Evans, and two employees with three things:

1. False or unsubstantiated earnings claims, in breach of the FTC Act.
2. Breaking the Telemarketing Sales Rule. The rule treats anything sold on promises of income as an "investment opportunity", and it bans telemarketers from misrepresenting the earnings potential of one.
3. Ignoring a written warning. In October 2021 the FTC had sent The Sales Mentor its Notices of Penalty Offenses on money-making opportunities and on endorsements. The complaint says the companies kept making the same claims afterwards.

"Traffic and Funnels lured people looking to work and earn an income with false or unfounded earnings claims, even after receiving legal notices from the FTC about the illegality of such conduct," said Samuel Levine, then Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, in the announcement.

The core of the case sits in one paragraph of the complaint: the defendants "have not tracked the earnings, income, commissions, net profits, or overall success achieved by purchasers." They quoted an average income they had never measured.

What The Sales Mentor promised

The marketing, as quoted in the complaint, was loud. Some lines, in their original capitals:

• "DESPERATE TO HAND YOU A GIANT COMMISSION CHECK OF $980 OR MORE SIMPLY BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE ONE EASY TO LEARN SKILL THAT THEIR BUSINESS CAN'T SURVIVE WITHOUT."
• "This High-Demand Skill Puts You Dead-Center in A Thriving, $129 Billion-Dollar Industry That Will Stuff Your Pockets With Daily Commission Checks of $980 or More."
• "[T]hese commissions can get so massive . . . it's virtually IMPOSSIBLE NOT to enjoy a job-replacing six-figure income, even part-time."
• "[Y]ou can expect to close and get a fat commission check on 40% of your calls."

The people at the top made the claims on camera.

Christopher Evans, in a video the FTC captured in July 2022: "[A]s a high-ticket closer, you'd earn around 8-12 % of every deal closed . . . Earning you an average of $700-$1000 for every single deal that you finalize . . . which often happens in about 45-60 minutes or less."

Payton Welch, Taylor Welch's brother and a sales director, said in marketing videos captured in early 2022 that within two weeks he "had already made $15,460 in commissions", and in a January 2022 video that he "averaged about $30K [in commissions] per month."

Taylor Welch, in a video captured in April 2022: "10-20 thousand dollars a month in earning potential is what we're seeing on average."

Marketing also built up Welch himself. One line said he had "advised & serviced over 50,000 business leaders in the last 5 years and currently sits as CEO over four multi-8 figure business brands." Another said The Sales Mentor had "helped over 25,000 people find secure, dependable, consistent and life-changing incomes." The FTC called that claim false.

Do the math they used

Welch walked prospects through the arithmetic. From the April 2022 video, as quoted by the FTC:

"The average KPI is 20% closing ratio. The average commission is 8 to 10%, and the average price point is $8 to 10 thousand dollars. . . . That's 600 bucks to a thousand bucks per close. . . . Twenty-five times .2, that's five closes per week. At $600 dollars per close. You're at $3,000 dollars per week and $12,000 dollars per month of net take-home income."

Every number in that sum is an assumption. Look at what has to be true for it to work:

The hard part is the first line. Nothing in the training produces the 25 calls. The Sales Mentor said it would. Taylor Welch told viewers in videos captured in April and July 2022 that the company had "dozens and dozens and dozens of business owners who need people just like you." Payton Welch emailed an FTC investigator posing as a consumer in April 2022 that over 757 business owners had invested in his brother's business "to get connected" with trained closers.

What buyers got, according to the complaint, "often turned out to be nothing more than access to scant or outdated job listings."

The telemarketers pushed the sums further. On 11 April 2022 one told an FTC investigator: "That means you're making about $1,000 bucks a day, 5 grand a week, 20K a month." On 6 September 2022 another worked through a full-time calendar and landed on "about 28 a month; annual, around 300", meaning $28,000 a month and $300,000 a year. A man who called himself the Director of Sales told an investigator in July 2022 that he made 12 grand in his first month knowing nothing, and "in my first 12 months of sales, over $6 million."

If you want to sanity-check any closer pitch, run the same sum yourself with honest numbers, then compare the result to what you would need to replace your job. Our hourly rate calculator works out what a self-employed person has to earn per hour to match a salary once unpaid time and tax come out.

The money machine: how The Sales Mentor sold it

1. The ad. Social media and internet ads, mostly YouTube and Facebook, promising "$10k+/Month" and a "FOR FREE" training.
2. The free training. A video narrated by Taylor Welch or Payton Welch, full of earnings claims, with a form for your email and phone number.
3. The phone call. A telemarketer repeated the income claims. This is where the $9,800 offer came in.
4. The tiers. Three levels, according to the complaint:

- Inbound Closer Accelerator, $97: a video library and a sales script. - Inbound Closer Certification, about $497 to $600. - Private Coaching, about $8,800 to $9,800: "private" one-on-one coaching, plus a weekly group call and more videos.

1. The follow-up. More emails and videos repeating the same claims.

The top tier is where buyers felt it most. "Many consumers have reported that the promised one-on-one 'private' coaching never materialized and was never 'private,'" the complaint says, and some found that much of what they got had been free, or was in the cheaper packages.

More than 55,360 people bought some version of the programme since 2018. Most of the $29 million came from that funnel.

The warning The Sales Mentor ignored

A Notice of Penalty Offenses is a letter from the FTC listing practices the Commission has already ruled illegal in past cases, such as claiming that participants will earn a specific amount without knowing what participants usually earn. A company that receives the notice and does it anyway can face civil penalties.

The Sales Mentor received the one on money-making opportunities on 27 October 2021, the complaint says, along with a second notice on endorsements and testimonials. Two of the practices on the money-making list fit this case closely: misrepresenting "that participants will or are likely to earn any specific amount", and using an earnings figure as if it were typical without saying what participants usually make.

The complaint says the companies kept making the claims after that date. Most of the quotes above were captured in 2022. You can read the notice itself at ftc.gov/MMO-notice.

Who is behind The Sales Mentor?

The court record names six defendants.

• Taylor A. Welch, co-CEO of Traffic and Funnels, WE Capital and Evans and Welch Holdings, and co-owner of Evans and Welch Inc.
• Christopher A. Evans, co-CEO of the same companies and co-owner of Evans and Welch Inc.
• Payton Welch, a salesperson and sales director, described in the complaint as Taylor Welch's brother.
• Ashton Shanks, CEO and an owner of Evans and Welch Inc. since June 2022.
• The four companies listed in the key facts table.

Their side

Taylor Welch answered publicly on X on 12 December 2023, the day after the FTC's announcement. He wrote that "we agreed to resolve the FTC's complaint by settling with them rather than spend years litigating with the government" and that "there have been no findings by any court that we violated the law or did anything wrong." He said the case was about "OLD businesses, which were shut down more than a year ago, including Sales Mentor, Inbound Closer, Sales Pro Academy & Traffic and Funnels," and that "the FTC alleged that we didn't have sufficient evidence to support the earnings claims we made when selling those programs."

"We disagree with what the FTC put in its complaint and how it characterized us in its press release," he added, calling the investigation "one sided." He also wrote that "the complaint makes no reference to any single complaint - NOT ONE - from any of our past customers."

Readers can weigh that against paragraph 23 of the complaint, which says many consumers "reported" that private coaching never materialised, and against the FTC's description of consumers who "complained" about it in the December 2023 announcement. Welch is right that no court ruled on the facts. The settlement orders say the defendants "neither admit nor deny" the allegations.

We found no public statement from Christopher Evans.

How the case ended

The FTC filed the complaint and two proposed settlement orders together. The Commission voted 3-0. One order covers Evans; the other covers the Welches, Shanks and the four companies.

• Earnings claims. Every defendant is banned from earnings claims that are "misleading or unsubstantiated."
• Misrepresentations. They may not misrepresent anything in the sale of any product or service.
• Money. Taylor Welch had to turn over $600,000 and Evans $400,000 for refunds, $1 million in total.
• Judgment. $16,363,073.11 against all defendants except Shanks, suspended beyond the $1 million because of what the defendants said they could pay. If they lied about their finances, the full amount falls due.

Compare that with Growth Cave, where the founders were banned from selling business opportunities altogether. The Sales Mentor orders did not ban anyone from selling coaching. They require that any future income claim be true and backed by evidence.

The Sales Mentor refunds: who got paid and how much

The FTC has paid out twice.

• January 2025. The FTC announced on 14 January 2025 that it was sending PayPal payments to 8,174 consumers, more than $960,000 in total.
• July 2026. The FTC's refund page says the first round "resulted in more than $802,000 in refunds", meaning that is what people actually accepted. Because money was left in the fund, the FTC is sending a second round: "1,623 payments totaling more than $136,000 to people who accepted their first payment."

Only people who accepted the first payment get the second. Checks must be cashed within 90 days; PayPal payments must be accepted within 30 days. Questions go to the refund administrator, JND Legal Administration, at 1-877-930-1733. The FTC never asks you to pay or to give account details to receive a refund, so anyone who does is not the FTC.

Here is the arithmetic, which is ours: about $938,000 refunded across both rounds, against more than $29 million paid in. That is roughly 3 cents back on each dollar.

Is high-ticket closing legit?

The job is real. Companies that sell expensive coaching, software or services do hire people to take sales calls and pay them a commission on each sale. The FTC did not sue anyone for doing that job. It sued a company for selling training with an income promise it could not support.

The difference shows up in one question: who pays whom? In a real closing job, the company pays you. In The Sales Mentor's model, you paid up to $9,800 for the chance to be connected to a company, and the connection was often an old job list.

If you are weighing any closer programme, test it like this:

1. Ask for the denominator. "How many people bought this last year, and how many are earning $10,000 a month now?" A seller that does not track buyers cannot answer. The Sales Mentor could not.
2. Ask for three employers by name. Then call them and ask whether they have hired a graduate and what that closer earns.
3. Check who the success stories are. The Inbound Closer testimonials came from the founder's brother, who was a sales director.
4. Get the tier difference in writing. If "private coaching" costs $9,800 and the $97 package has the same videos, you are paying $9,703 for a promise.
5. Rerun their sum with your numbers. Where do 25 booked calls a week come from? Who pays your health insurance? What happens in a slow month?
6. Apply for real closer jobs first. Commission-only sales roles are advertised openly on job boards. If you can get hired without the course, you do not need the course. If no one will hire you without it, ask why the course is the only way in.

Online Business Course Scams: 10 Red Flags (From Reviewing 189 Gurus) covers the wider pattern, and How Fake Gurus Fabricate Income Proof (And How to Spot It) shows how screenshots like "$15,460 in two weeks" get made. Our Dan Lok review looks at another high-ticket closing programme.

What to do instead

A year from now, two people who saw the same ad will be in different places. One put $9,800 on a credit card, still has the old job and is paying interest on a course. The other spent those evenings applying to commission sales roles at companies that train their own staff, took one, and is cashing commission cheques from an employer who needed them. The second person may not be making $12,000 a month. But they are paid for the selling they do, and the rent gets covered by a commission cheque from a real employer.

If you have bought a closer programme already, check whether you are owed money. Search the FTC refunds list, and report your experience at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. The record in this case started with people who did exactly that.

More case studies from this series: Growth Cave, Air AI and Elias Yoder, the AI influencer behind the Amish channel.