Biz Tips: The possibility Vs probability of success
GROWTH:
The possibility Vs probability of success
The element of truth that most people refuse to use to succeed
I’d like to start this piece with a wide message for all: individual failure is an essential part of the proverbial “overnight success”. We all must listen and accept failure as a part of a greater calling. Here’s a little documentation of what my failures have been and the truth that it made me see.
The true idea of a democratic platform for competition is to let one thousand flowers bloom instead of one enriching tree providing shade to a thousand.
Truth as always been twisted and turned, and the truth provided to us by our peers and colleagues about success is only a version of the whole truth.
Before I begin, I’d like to point out the different kinds of truth that I have come across in my lifetime. For the most part, this is true for our whole realm.
- Objective truth: it’s the truth that is scientifically correct, and hence is applicable to all.
- Personal truth: it’s the truth that’s applicable an individual. Religious practices fall under this.
- Political truth: it’s the truth that becomes true by incessant repetition.
We’re surrounded by all of these and in my opinion, this is what makes up for the noise that’s around us. Distraction can be a very dangerous thing and one very effective way out of it is to open your eyes and try to pin down what makes your goal so special that you realize the depth and complexity of it. The true essence of the gravity of your purpose.
Not a lot of people know this story of mine, but back in 2016 I worked for a short while as a telemarketer with an accounting company. Know this, I had already founded my first company a few months ago (July 2016). It’s absurd isn’t it?
A guy who owns a company working as a part time telemarketer. I found it silly too, but who the hell cares when you’re a first time entrepreneur and a nobody nerd working out of your bedroom?
I wanted to make some money on the side, and I liked the thought of being exposed to actual hardcore sales where rejection prevails at 99% of the times.
“Wolf of Wall Street” was one movie I was head over heels for then. I think that movie touched me because a large part of it was around salesman and showmanship.
I was reading this book last night on how to become a better salesman, and I learned that in order to become a master closer you need more enthusiasm than knowledge. Anybody can read and learn about the product but it’s your zeal and passion about the product that really gets you going for the most part.
When you’re focused only on the process you’ll gain a lot of emotional intelligence. Noise around you will automatically mute and you’ll remain humble. It works like magic.
So, in that short 25 day period that I worked for, I witnessed harsh reality. From a lot of perspectives. And I’m penning this down now because I feel I owe this truth to my readers.
My job was pretty simple.
I was given an excel sheet of names, numbers of potential candidates (cold leads)to whom I had to call, pitch and explain to them about this accounting course that the firm I worked for was offering.
I made myself a basic sales template (again, inspired from the Wolf himself). I had to make about 100 cold calls each day and get people to show up in their office for a free orientation program.
I began making calls and recorded each response, and sent them cold follow up emails and my conversion rate, without a doubt was 2/100. Now a lot of people would claim that cold calls don’t convert too much these days, but being in sales for sometime now I feel that if you picked up that phone and had 10 solid conversations with 10 people, your success rate would be at par with the top callers.
Numbers don’t matter as much as relationships in sales if you’re in for the long haul.
5 days in and no success. I started to regret my decision of picking up this offer, which my partner was kind enough to offer.
Do note that he was working as the Director of Marketing as well for that company back then, and he was way older to me. I was 19. He was 32.
I managed to motivate myself and instrospected on my failures. I figured that I wasn’t passionate about what I was selling.
Hell, I barely cleared my own math papers and here I was selling accounting and excel courses to people and evaluating them over a call.
Little did I know that the phase after things would end in hitting the wall and sh*t would hit the fan on a whole different level.
I tried several strategies over the next couple of days. I tried making less calls, and instead have more in-depth conversations. I thought doing this would help me better survey the pain points of the customer and I could use that information to make my sales pitch more relevant. FAILED.
Next up, I tried making more calls in a single day than humanly possible! I thought if I completed list after list, my probability of success would increase (based on law of averages; common man’s rule of thumb) and this would impress my superiors. FAILED. EVERYTHING BACKFIRED.
The third and the funniest, I literally gave up on this entire espionage after day 15. I was so frustrated and was getting nowhere. I felt that I was wasting my precious 3–4 hours in a day. I just couldn’t get myself to sit down and make those damn calls! FAILED HERE TOO.
I was fired on day 25 for no real mistake of mine.
I was fired because my partner (who worked as the Director of Marketing with that company) accidentally sent out our business proposal from his official mail ID, and that was cc’d to his bosses.
What a way for shit to hit the fan right?
So let’s do some calculation here.
- I didn’t get the money ($136)
- I didn’t succeed.
It was only two years later that I became aware of the lesson that this incident taught me.
I spoke about truth at the start of this article. In my opinion, everyone must be clear with this distinction within the concept of truth.
I was clear with my objective truth; I had my facts and logical arguments straight.
I wasn’t clear with my personal truth other than my personal conviction toward accepting it as the whole truth. What I mean is, I was determined to sell, but not convinced of what I was selling. I had no stake in their problems or in the proposed solution. This is bad salesmanship. If you won’t buy it yourself, good luck getting others to buy it.
Because of my obsession to win, I only operated under the umbrella of the political truth. That’s bad if your customer expects you to take his side over and above everything else.
Unfortunately, most of us mix up these three concepts of truths in our lives and complicate things.
If you’re not succeeding despite several attempts, you need to think things over. Is your character foundation and belief system solid? If it isn’t, write down your thoughts on paper. Introspect by action, not just by thought.
The human brain is better receptive to visual elements. It needs to see to reorganize and re-start.
Today, as a salesman, I hold the skill of enthusiasm and my stake in the truth of the product above everything else. If I have to use a pitch to sell something, I won’t do it anymore.
I only sell if I can make a real human conversation about it, like a friend indeed!