I have a confession
I have a confession to make.
I was once…
A vacuum cleaner salesman.
Yes, it’s true, and I grimace even as I write these words.
I experienced some of the lowest points in my life trying to sell freaking vacuum cleaners.
I was not a natural. I hated it. I had this spiel I was supposed to go through, and at first, every time I did it, I just wanted to turn and run.
In fact, one of the lowest points in the whole affair (notice I said one of the lowest points) was when I was doing my demo for a young couple, and I was trying to make some light small talk.
Have you ever said something completely stupid to someone that you wish you could take back?
I stick my foot in my mouth
I noticed the woman had some bulge to her stomach, and without hesitation, I cheerfully asked, “So, when’s the baby?” with a big grin on my face.
“I’m not expecting,” she said flatly.
Blink. Blink.
At that moment, I pretty much wanted to just kill myself.
Time slowed to a cold, sluggish crawl. I could not just say, “Well, this is over with,” and just get up and leave. I went through the entire remainder of my demo, feeling ashen and queasy from how stupid I was. It was already over, and I was just going through the motions.
When it came to the point where I asked for the order,we already knew exactly what was going to happen. She just looked at me coldly, chin on hand, and with the faintest smile on her lips, she said, “No, I don’t think so.”
But then I turned it around
But the next day, it was all different. After a terrible day like the previous one, I just knew it had to be better. I had the feeling that I was going to kill it. I just knew it would result in a sale.
And that’s exactly what happened. It all went just it was supposed to: the couple loved the machine, and they liked me. I was just a nice man, earnestly showing them the cleaning power of the machine. Their faces were comic book caricatures of wonder and disgust at how well the machine worked and how dirty their carpet really was.
They bought one so eagerly, I probably should’ve asked them to buy two.
I got the sale… and a lifetime of lessons
To this day, I am still learning lessons from that surreal time in my life about selling, buying, psychology… and myself. I learned about throwing myself out there, making it happen… or not… depending on my frame of mind, my thoughts, my attitude.
It’s not that the machine wasn’t any good–it was. It’s not that I was telling lies–I wasn’t. The truth is, I really believed in that little machine. It was worse than that.
I was living the lie, because doing that for a job wasn’t really me. I really enjoy marketing and advertising, but I knew I was meant for something better than vacuum cleaner sales.
And now, when I think about my continuous personal evolution, I realize that what I’m trying to do is find my truth and live that. I’m trying to be my own truth, live my own truth.
Live your truth
And when you’re living your own truth, you’re no longer “selling.” You’re simply offering people your truth. You don’t need to “sell.”
The way I can talk about blogging and internet marketing non-stop without tiring could not happen if I was living a lie. People keep asking me for help, so I guess I’m doing something right. The more I understand about myself, and the more I bring what I do in alignment with who I am, the more amazing my results are.
When I look back on it, what I can now see so clearly is that how you feel and think about yourself determines a great deal of what “happens” to you. When it came to doing those demonstrations, giving the pitch, asking for the order, I would wonder: why did this one go so wrong and the other one work perfectly?
It wasn’t some magic formula in the words I said. It was my attitude and confidence, even before I set foot in the prospect’s home.
Ask the right questions
Even though people like to poke fun at him for being “Mr. Self Help,” or whatever, Tony Robbins said a really interesting thing in a video on his blog about what questions we ask ourselves. Often, they’re the wrong questions. If I asked, “How come I never make money online?” my mind would try to come up with the answer in a way that hurts, rather than helps. You never make money online because…
You see? The whole thing becomes a cycle of negative self-reinforcemement, because it started with the wrong question. Instead, ask, “What can I do to make more money online?”
I can talk about what you should do on your blog and on Twitter and all that, but outward tactics are hollow and will not fully succeed unless you’ve got your inner game figured out.
Scratch the surface to infinity
Scratch the surface, and you’ll find that attitudes, beliefs, and confidence have a lot to do with that. I’m not much of a “self-help” guy. I don’t read blogs or books on that stuff. Oddly enough, the more I learn about business, marketing, copywriting, and selling online, the more I learn about myself and what it takes to succeed.
I think the same can be said of nearly any pursuit. Take art, for example: does the artist make the painting, or does the painting “make” the artist?
Breathe in the blogosphere
As the technology and the tools become ever-present, like air, they will fade into the background, and it’s the people who will stand out. Sure, in part, the medium is the message, but what drives the message? Something primally human: the need for significance.