This is an old post from the sowpub.com forum by Don Alm…
There are lots of great ways to make lots of money.
Unfortunately, they all involve selling of one form or another… even website monetized by Google Adsense are about selling Google on why your website has unique content or some other search engine on your site’s value to the reader.
The last lie we overcome in business is the lie that says we need not learn how to promote ourselves. Or should I say, we overcome it if we want to survive.
Don Alm started out headed down the traditional “corporate man” route until all the 50 year olds were getting canned and living on peanuts.
How could he escape - to use our modern phrase - the “cubicle”?
I now consider myself a “successful Direct Salesman”. I can take a mock-up sample of an advertising product…show it to businesspeople and in at least 1 out of 3 tries…get an order.
It hasn’t always been that way.
When I was in high school and college I was a “football star”. I was well liked AND because of a “personality-fault” called “A Terrible INFERIORITY COMPLEX” (which I call ABSOLUTE SHYNESS BORDERING ON ABJECT FEAR OF CONTACT WITH OTHERS)….I was called “CONCEITED” or “STUCK-UP” because I wouldn’t say “Hi!” to fellow students I’d pass on campus. They didn’t know I was TERRIBLY SHY!
From contact with others at college and from my experiences I realized that “SALES” had the greatest potential for me to earn a GOOD living…PLUS…if I could master the art of selling….I would NOT have to be dependent on one company or one product line…I could apply my sales abilities to almost any product or service…just a matter of becoming familiar with the product or service…then I’d use my sales skills to sell.
So…because I realized I HAD TO learn “How To Sell”….in the summer of my Junior year, instead of working “construction” like my fellow “jocks” I decided to get a one of the toughest jobs there is…”Selling Encyclopedias on Straight Commission”. I would either learn how to sell or starve.
The first couple weeks was TERRIBLE. I had to draw upon every ounce of “inner strength” to walk up to doors…COLD…talk my way into setting an appointment…make the appointment…give my presentation and close the sale.
Again…this was totally against my “personality”. I HATED IT….but I knew I had to do it if I was to have a “successful” life. And I couldn’t see myself sitting in an engineering lab for the rest of my life.
I not only made money that summer…I made GOOD money…probably three times as much working construction.
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