I was thinking the other day about the first time I ever sold something.

I could be a little off, but I believe it was during my glory days as a Boy Scout selling popcorn door-to-door to pay for some random summer camp in the middle of nowhere Michigan.

I only ever did Boy Scouts (and the obligatory popcorn sales) for the sense of adventure — unbridled opportunities to play with fire, show off my sweet pocket knife collection, and helplessly paddle canoes through what seemed at the time to be Class V rapids fit for an Olympian.

OK, back to the sales story…

No one ever wants Boy Scout popcorn.

It’s absolutely horrible.  I still remember the Trail’s End packaging with the smiling kids who looked like they’d rather be anywhere else other than the side of a neglected popcorn tin.

In my short-lived career as a popcorn salesman, not a single person bought from me because they liked the popcorn.  Not one.  People made purchases because they a) felt bad or b) liked me but not the popcorn.

As a result of this experience, I viewed sales for the longest time as the following:

Sales = (guilt + sympathy – time to make nuisance go away) / cost.

The lower the cost of what you’re selling, the less guilt and sympathy required to make a sale.

Nine out of ten times when the word “sales” comes up in a conversation with a friend, they too view it through the lens of this equation…  A look of fear flashes across their face as they think back to their own door-to-door hustle or perhaps the used car salesman peddling a ’95 Corolla on the day of their 16th birthday.

This was me up until very recently.  I was too scared to “sell” because I didn’t want to face rejection and push something I didn’t believe in.

Now that I have a tiny bit more experience and spend a significant portion of my days persuading people I’ve never met before, things are different.

I now see three important lessons out of my dreaded annual popcorn hustle:

You are the key —Just like people bought into 8-year-old Austin’s shy demeanor and spiky hair held in place with more gel than all of NSYNC combined, they too buy into the lifelong salesperson standing before them pitching a $5 million technology project.  The product or service is always secondary.

If you’re begging, don’t bother — As a caveat to the first point, don’t bother selling a product or service you don’t whole-heartedly believe in.  This does no good for you, your customers, or their customers.  I was never any good at selling popcorn because I hated it and believed that everyone else did to.  Continuing to fake it would’ve made things worse.

If you want something, ask for it — Nothing good ever happens when you sit around and hope.  I sold exactly zero popcorn tins moping around feeling bad about myself (except for maybe that one my mom gave to a friend).  Hoping is never productive.

The way best way for us to implement these three lessons is to start by doing a better job of selling ourselves.  Unlike the popcorn from my experience, you are the most important thing to sell in the world.  Find your niche, believe in and continuously increase your value, and go after what you want.

See you next Sunday at 8:30pm.  🙂

PS — If at this point you’re upset about the way I portrayed Boy Scouts and/or popcorn, calm down.  It was the perfect example to illustrate my point.

There very well may be great Trail’s End popcorn on the market these days, though I certainly do have my suspicions…  I mean how can you stand by and let Girl Scouts sell the greatest, most addicting cookies of all time and all you offer in return is overpriced corn kernels..?

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About Me

Hi, I'm Austin.

After graduating from Elon University, I moved to Miami, FL through the Venture For America Fellowship Program.

Miami has since become my home where I spend my free time running, biking, taking pictures, and trying to become friends with Pitbull.

I'm always looking for the next challenge.  That's exactly why I started my own business-to-business sales company, launched the Miami Talent Pipeline, and most recently committed to sharing 52 ideas with you for the next year.

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