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Long story short, my Fastlane dream is to have my own national coffee brand. I have posted about this before and that is still my number one goal. However, I have found that this is going to be a much more expensive undertaking than I had previously realized. Quite frankly, I need to make a lot of extra money that I can pour into starting up this company.
So I decided to get a sales job. Why sales? I love talking to people and I’ve always been told it’s a great to make a lot of money when you don’t have a degree.
So a couple months back I wrote down my goal on a sheet of paper: “Get hired at a sales job within the next two weeks.”
Then I wrote down even task that I would need to complete to accomplish this goal. Things like:
The idea was to conduct the entire thing like a sales process to show them I have some idea of sales instead of just doing what most people do and just submit an application and hope they get a call back.
I also made a website using my name and spent hours using copywriting books as a reference to build what was essentially a long ad on why they should hire me as their next sales rep. Again, I wanted to stand out and display some sales skills. I felt this might impress someone…
Turns out I didn’t need to do any of that.
A few days into my goal a random chance encounter led me to meet someone on a door to door sales team working for a very large corporation that sells internet, cable packages, and cell phone services to consumers.
I asked if they were hiring and the next day I had an interview with his boss.
I was hired!
My training was set to start in two weeks. It would be two weeks of training on their products/services and their sales process and a few days each week out shadowing their sales reps.
I took this job because I’ve always been interested in D2D, it has a guaranteed salary that is just big enough to cover my living expenses, and unlimited and uncapped commissions.
I did some research and the average rep is making around $70k a year and the top 10% are making between $100k and $120k a year total. Two people on my team of 16 are making over $100k.
My plan is to live cheap and put all the commission money into my business.
But anyways…
I decided to use the two weeks before training to get a jumpstart. I bought 5 different d2d sales book off Amazon. Bought a sales course from 7th Level NEPQ. Also bought the CEOs book on sales. Reread Jordan Belforts book and came across his massively online course. Also went thru some stuff from Knockstars (Taylor McCarthy) and Andy Elliott (I know, I know…).
Over the course of those two weeks I worked morning until night on the sales material. Read all the books and took notes. Did the courses and took notes. I was addicted and commited.
Used ChatGPT to roleplay and practice.
Then a week into my training at the Internet Company I also found a sales mastermind group that meets twice a week and joined it.
Went thru the two weeks of company training (which seemed horrible compared to the training I did on my own) and was constantly told by the instructor that I was going to kill this and do well. Got a 100% on the final exam and all.
I shadowed the top sales guy on our team and watched him work. Honestly… I was baffled at what I saw…
Despite being the top sales guy for pretty much every single month for the three years he has been here, he uses nearly no sales stuff. He even told me to forget everything I learned in the company training because “it’s all BS and sales skills don’t matter. They either want it or they don’t. It’s just F*cking internet and phone stuff.”
His entire method was to walk up and say:
“Hey what’s up? I’m Name from Company. Who do you currently use for internet?”
They will respond and he will say “Ok if we are cheaper do you want to hear about it?”
If they give him any objection, no matter how small, he just says “ok” and walks away. His entire system is to play the numbers game and just find the people who wants it right now and will just place an order will no fuss.
Seemed crazy to me but it works for him!
And yeah, I watched him get sales.
After a few days of shadowing him and another week of training with the company it was finally time that I was allowed to go knock by myself.
That was Monday of this week. Tho, somehow it wasn’t mentioned to me, but this week and next we have MORE sales training but it’s only the first half of the day instead of nearly the whole day. So this week and next I get to knock for about 3 - 4 hours a day.
The first day I was scared shitless…
Took me like an hour of just walking around and looking at the houses I was supposed to knock on my GPS app (they give us a city and list all the houses that aren’t subscribers).
I took a break, got some food, and then for whatever reason when I came back from the break my fear was gone. I was able to knock no problem. I was still a little nervous once they answered and I likely sounded like an idiot but at least I could knock.
Surprisingly, everyone was super nice.
Of course, I had zero luck the first day but that was to be expected. What I heard over and over again is that everyone hates the company I work for because they have a horrible reputation. (Before doing some major upgrades recently and being bought out, this company did have really bad service but it’s recently been improved.)
Tuesday: I knocked on 51 doors using what I learned from the dude I shadowed. Well… I would have used it except not one single person answered the door.
That said, it was Election Day so I just hopped that had something to do with it.
The next day I had a ton of people answer their doors but as soon as they heard who I worked or they were immediately annoyed and didn’t want to hear anything I had to say. This is where the guy I shadowed would just say “thanks” and walk away so I tried it that day and on Thursday. No sales either day.
Now today on Friday I decided I would actually try to bypass these objections as I was trained to do. Knocked on 52 doors and had two people answer. Both wanted nothing to do with me.
This hasn’t demotivated because 1) I know it’s a game of small successes and lots of rejection and 2) Challenges just motivate me to try even harder.
But I am frustrated because nearly every other person in my virtual training class of 21 has gotten at least two or three sales by now. None of these people have previous sales experience and none of them have done any sales training outside of what the company is providing us. Half of them never even went out in the field and shadowed anybody that’s already making sales. Yet somehow these guys are all making sales while hitting less doors than I am while I’m still getting rejected left and right.
What the absolute F*ck…
So yeah, im not sure what’s going on. I reached out to my sales trainer and asked his advice and he never he cared to text or call me back.
So then I reached out to the guy I shadowed and he told me to keep knocking and playing the numbers game.
I’m going to keep at it but it is frustrating.
Along the way I going to document my journey here. Why? I don’t know. Maybe I just want a place to vent. Maybe I want some feedback. Maybe I just like to get my thoughts out. I don’t know…
But that’s it for now. It’s 7pm and I’m back home. Going to do a workout, shower, eat, and probably go to bed. I have a mastermind meeting at 8am tomorrow and I’m going to discuss all of this with them. Then I’m going to go put in my first full day of knocking and see what happens.
Thankfully I don’t have a quota for the first few months but I still want to make sales.
Thanks for reading! I’ll keep this updated.
So I decided to get a sales job. Why sales? I love talking to people and I’ve always been told it’s a great to make a lot of money when you don’t have a degree.
So a couple months back I wrote down my goal on a sheet of paper: “Get hired at a sales job within the next two weeks.”
Then I wrote down even task that I would need to complete to accomplish this goal. Things like:
- Researching the available sales jobs.
- Finding out who the sales managers at these jobs are.
- Cold outreach to these managers using a combination of phone calls, office visits, email, etc.
- Make contact and set up an an interview.
The idea was to conduct the entire thing like a sales process to show them I have some idea of sales instead of just doing what most people do and just submit an application and hope they get a call back.
I also made a website using my name and spent hours using copywriting books as a reference to build what was essentially a long ad on why they should hire me as their next sales rep. Again, I wanted to stand out and display some sales skills. I felt this might impress someone…
Turns out I didn’t need to do any of that.
A few days into my goal a random chance encounter led me to meet someone on a door to door sales team working for a very large corporation that sells internet, cable packages, and cell phone services to consumers.
I asked if they were hiring and the next day I had an interview with his boss.
I was hired!
My training was set to start in two weeks. It would be two weeks of training on their products/services and their sales process and a few days each week out shadowing their sales reps.
I took this job because I’ve always been interested in D2D, it has a guaranteed salary that is just big enough to cover my living expenses, and unlimited and uncapped commissions.
I did some research and the average rep is making around $70k a year and the top 10% are making between $100k and $120k a year total. Two people on my team of 16 are making over $100k.
My plan is to live cheap and put all the commission money into my business.
But anyways…
I decided to use the two weeks before training to get a jumpstart. I bought 5 different d2d sales book off Amazon. Bought a sales course from 7th Level NEPQ. Also bought the CEOs book on sales. Reread Jordan Belforts book and came across his massively online course. Also went thru some stuff from Knockstars (Taylor McCarthy) and Andy Elliott (I know, I know…).
Over the course of those two weeks I worked morning until night on the sales material. Read all the books and took notes. Did the courses and took notes. I was addicted and commited.
Used ChatGPT to roleplay and practice.
Then a week into my training at the Internet Company I also found a sales mastermind group that meets twice a week and joined it.
Went thru the two weeks of company training (which seemed horrible compared to the training I did on my own) and was constantly told by the instructor that I was going to kill this and do well. Got a 100% on the final exam and all.
I shadowed the top sales guy on our team and watched him work. Honestly… I was baffled at what I saw…
Despite being the top sales guy for pretty much every single month for the three years he has been here, he uses nearly no sales stuff. He even told me to forget everything I learned in the company training because “it’s all BS and sales skills don’t matter. They either want it or they don’t. It’s just F*cking internet and phone stuff.”
His entire method was to walk up and say:
“Hey what’s up? I’m Name from Company. Who do you currently use for internet?”
They will respond and he will say “Ok if we are cheaper do you want to hear about it?”
If they give him any objection, no matter how small, he just says “ok” and walks away. His entire system is to play the numbers game and just find the people who wants it right now and will just place an order will no fuss.
Seemed crazy to me but it works for him!
And yeah, I watched him get sales.
After a few days of shadowing him and another week of training with the company it was finally time that I was allowed to go knock by myself.
That was Monday of this week. Tho, somehow it wasn’t mentioned to me, but this week and next we have MORE sales training but it’s only the first half of the day instead of nearly the whole day. So this week and next I get to knock for about 3 - 4 hours a day.
The first day I was scared shitless…
Took me like an hour of just walking around and looking at the houses I was supposed to knock on my GPS app (they give us a city and list all the houses that aren’t subscribers).
I took a break, got some food, and then for whatever reason when I came back from the break my fear was gone. I was able to knock no problem. I was still a little nervous once they answered and I likely sounded like an idiot but at least I could knock.
Surprisingly, everyone was super nice.
Of course, I had zero luck the first day but that was to be expected. What I heard over and over again is that everyone hates the company I work for because they have a horrible reputation. (Before doing some major upgrades recently and being bought out, this company did have really bad service but it’s recently been improved.)
Tuesday: I knocked on 51 doors using what I learned from the dude I shadowed. Well… I would have used it except not one single person answered the door.
That said, it was Election Day so I just hopped that had something to do with it.
The next day I had a ton of people answer their doors but as soon as they heard who I worked or they were immediately annoyed and didn’t want to hear anything I had to say. This is where the guy I shadowed would just say “thanks” and walk away so I tried it that day and on Thursday. No sales either day.
Now today on Friday I decided I would actually try to bypass these objections as I was trained to do. Knocked on 52 doors and had two people answer. Both wanted nothing to do with me.
This hasn’t demotivated because 1) I know it’s a game of small successes and lots of rejection and 2) Challenges just motivate me to try even harder.
But I am frustrated because nearly every other person in my virtual training class of 21 has gotten at least two or three sales by now. None of these people have previous sales experience and none of them have done any sales training outside of what the company is providing us. Half of them never even went out in the field and shadowed anybody that’s already making sales. Yet somehow these guys are all making sales while hitting less doors than I am while I’m still getting rejected left and right.
What the absolute F*ck…
So yeah, im not sure what’s going on. I reached out to my sales trainer and asked his advice and he never he cared to text or call me back.
So then I reached out to the guy I shadowed and he told me to keep knocking and playing the numbers game.
I’m going to keep at it but it is frustrating.
Along the way I going to document my journey here. Why? I don’t know. Maybe I just want a place to vent. Maybe I want some feedback. Maybe I just like to get my thoughts out. I don’t know…
But that’s it for now. It’s 7pm and I’m back home. Going to do a workout, shower, eat, and probably go to bed. I have a mastermind meeting at 8am tomorrow and I’m going to discuss all of this with them. Then I’m going to go put in my first full day of knocking and see what happens.
Thankfully I don’t have a quota for the first few months but I still want to make sales.
Thanks for reading! I’ll keep this updated.
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