A couple days ago, I wrote an email about an idea from Dave Sandler’s book You Can’t Teach A Kid To Ride A Bike At A Seminar.
It seems many readers found that email unusually inspiring, and wrote in to say so.
So I will shamelessly go back to the same well, and tell you another anecdote from Sandler’s book to try to inspire you.
Here goes:
Sandler didn’t start out as a salesman. He had inherited his father’s profitable business. But then, through a combination of entitlement and stupidity, Sandler lost that business.
He turned to sales because he hoped to once again afford the kind of lifestyle he was used to.
Sandler started selling self-help materials. He struggled and sucked.
In the first year of his miserable new sales career, he went to an awards show for the star salesmen of his company.
Of course, awards were given out at the awards show. Of course, Sandler, who struggled and sucked, won no awards. Of course, he felt inferior, and even doubly bad about struggling and sucking as a salesman.
But through some combination of gnawing insecurity, personal drive, and a lack of better options, Sandler stuck to it. And he made a vow to improve.
Sandler started visiting the salesmen who had won the top awards at the the awards show. His plan was to interview them, learn from them, soak in their skills and mindset by osmosis. Except, that’s not what ended up happening.
In Sandler’s own words:
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One by one I was disappointed by what I discovered. They were all struggling. I went from Dallas to Denver, from Washington to Virginia, and interviewed every distributor who agreed to spend time with me. Most of them were starving. There was nothing consistent about their lives. A year of success was easily followed by a year of failure, but they faked their way through it, just as they had been taught to do. These were the stars of the distributor network, and most of them were miserable.
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That’s it. That’s the anecdote. The end.
Yeah, of course the book goes on to describe how Sandler developed his own sales system, and how he eventually started consistently making sales, and winning awards, and how he became the star salesman for his company, year after year, etc.
But you’ve probably heard enough rags-to-riches stories in your life.
That’s why the end of the Sandler anecdote, if you ask me, should really fall where he goes to talk to all these industry stars, who seem to be doing great, making tons of sales, getting awards and kudos, and the reality is they’re struggling and experiencing all kinds of volatility and scarcity.
I don’t know what your specific situation is.
But I imagine you have certain insecurities. We all have them.
Maybe you’re insecure about something objective and measurable — you’re not making enough money, you have no kind of audience.
Or maybe you’re insecure about something less measurable but still real — your experience and status.
It’s bad enough to deal with such insecurities and the underlying realities on their own.
But it’s doubly bad when you look around, and spot people who appear to be doing amazing and inevitably compare yourself to them. 7-figure this! 4-hour that! A newsletter with 250 million readers!
I’d like to suggest to you — as in Sandler’s time, so today.
There’s no reason to feel doubly bad comparing your situation to the 7-figure, 4-hour superstars. Because there’s an excellent chance they are struggling behind the scenes. If you could really talk to them, it would be obvious enough.
As for the realities you might be facing — whether income, or influence, or your experience and status — my stock answer is to start writing daily emails. And it will fix itself.
You’ve probably gotten used to hearing me say that, and maybe you’ve gotten deaf to it.
So let me share a message I got a couple days ago from Chavy Helfgott, who is a copywriter and brand strategist for consumer brands.
Chavy signed up to my Daily Email Habit service on day one, back in November. She was looking to bring her career back into focus after a couple years off due to personal reasons.
She started writing first daily, then weekday emails. 66 emails so far since November.
Chavy wrote me a couple days ago to report the result:
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Hi, just wanted to share a daily email win. After 66 emails, I just closed my first sale which I directly attribute to daily emails, and that client is already expressing interest in another package.
Additionally, writing the daily emails has helped me become more confident about pitching myself in other places. I responded to a question on a WhatsApp community of business owners, and it led to two calls with potential clients.
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I’m not making any promises that daily emails will sort out your life in 66 days.
But if you have the right combination of gnawing insecurity, personal drive, and a lack of better options, might as well get started daily emailing today? One thing I’m sure of, the results will surprise you.
And if you want my help along the way, here’s more info on Daily Email Habit: