6 Life Lessons from Working as a Door to Door Salesman
Door to door sales can be strange, but an adventurous job. It’s not your traditional 9–5, like sitting in an office. You’re constantly outdoors, traveling from house to house, talking to as many people as possible. The weather can be extremely hot or cold, but you still got to maintain that smile and positive attitude. People will be slamming their doors to your face or making up reasons why they can’t talk, but you just got to move on without taking it personally.
Even though it can be exhausting to interact with so many different people nonstop for hours, the flow starts to change once you get that first sale in. After closing that sale, suddenly all of your previous anguish and pain just vanishes away. You feel rejuvenated with a strong life force again. This is the winner effect. You begin to crank out until you get that second, third, and even fourth sale in for the day. Sometimes the work may not look pretty, but the reward and lesson are too valuable to pass on.
Sales takes place everywhere
Sales is one of the most common jobs in the world because it requires sufficient humans to market and sell a company’s product. However, sales don’t just only happen in the workplace, it takes place everywhere, even in situations that you’d least expect. For example, negotiating with your boss about your salary is a form of sales. Convincing your friends and family on your viewpoint is sales. Asking someone on a date is sales. Even presenting in front of a crowd is sales.
Sales is simply the art of communicating your case and point effectively. It is the universal language that takes place everywhere. It comes from your tone and body language. Because of how crucial effective communication is, sales is a skill that needs to be learned by everyone. With door to door sales, I experienced how sales was able to impact every area of my life. It improved my personal and social life. After working in door to door sales for years, these are the 6 life lessons that I’ve learned.
1. Become a Master at handling rejection
Whenever you’re working in sales, most people think that the best skill you could learn is how to sell better. While that is true and can be helpful, I’d say it’s even more helpful to learn how to handle rejection masterfully. It’s important because if we let rejection get under our skin, it can drive us crazy and ruin an entire day of work. Trying to avoid rejection and failure is pointless. Use it as a stepping stone for you to improve and get better. You can’t please everyone, so give yourself permission to step on some toes.
“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all — in which case, you fail by default.” — J.K Rowling
To handle rejection and failure masterfully, you always need to reevaluate what you could’ve done better. This requires humility and self-awareness. It is always much easier to point fingers and blame it on the other person, but in the long run, it’s extremely unproductive and causes stagnation.
By reevaluating your actions, you enter into the habit of focusing on the efforts that are within your control, rather than complain about the ones outside of it. A lot of times, it’s not even about you. It’s common to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. As long as you don’t take it personally, you will continue to spiral forward. Choose to be better rather than bitter.
2. Always bring value to the person and situation
Whatever work or activities you take apart in, you always need to approach it with the frame of how can you add value to the situation. This framework changes your entire paradigm. In my personal experience, this also decreases your anxiety in many situations. Whenever you’re too focused on how you look, it causes stifling and hesitation. However, if you understand your inherent value, you’ll always add value to any situation that occurs. This allows you to focus less on yourself and more on the other person and circumstances at hand.
In sales, one of the most simple and effective thing that you could do is learn to listen. Just by being there as an attentive listener, you’re providing so much value than most people would choose to. More people would prefer to talk than to listen, but the listeners are dangerously effective. By listening closely, you’ll be able to respond to their words, tone, and body language. Listening has helped many salesmen closed like no other.
3. Get over the fear of looking stupid
This is the fear that always held me back. At the end of the day, no one wants to be embarrassed or look stupid. It hurts us or should I say our “ego.” There’s a popular saying that goes along the lines of, “Your ego is not your amigo” and for good reason too. Our ego is there to protect us from harm, but a lot of times, it’s prevents us from stepping outside of the comfort zone that could eventually cause us pain. It’s a tool that has good intentions but ultimately holds us back. We need to get used to the small losses to get to the big wins. Looking from hindsight, many of our past embarrassment isn’t even a big deal because it is completely forgotten. No one remembers.
There were many occasions where I knocked on somebody’s home and accidentally interrupted their lunch, dinner, BBQ parties, and even large family gatherings. It was extremely embarrassing and nerve-wracking to have 30 different strangers looking at you questionably, but it was always worth the shot. A good amount of those “embarrassing” situations had led me to close sales. At the end of the day, you either have to take on the risk or regret. In my personal opinion, too much regret can be costly.
4. It’s all a numbers game
Whether it’s sales, networking, or dating, it’s all just a numbers game. The more people that you approach and talk to, the more likely you’ll achieve your objective and goals. It’s a probability game. The person that takes 100 shots will likely do better than the person who only takes 1. In other words, “the harder you work, the luckier you get.”
5. Building strong relationship can cut workloads by tenfolds
There is always a huge emphasis on networking and connections. You’ve heard it before in school, colleges, and even the workplace. It’s all true. Knowing the right person can open doors to many opportunities that wouldn’t be there otherwise. I experienced it first hand. A good amount of my sales came from existing customers that I have already built mutual relationships with. They liked the service so much that they recommended it to their friends and families. Opportunities are just the side effects of building strong relationships forged on trust and values.
“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” — Susan Roane
6. Not everyone deserves a reaction
This was a lesson that I needed to learn. Remember when I said that “your ego is not your amigo.” Well, our pride can take us down. Sometimes it’s better to walk away than stay in a toxic conversation or relationship. The best salesman knows when to walk away. They understand that you can’t sell to everyone, but it’s important to differentiate the ones who are interested from the ones who aren’t.
I understand that in the age of the internet, we always feel the need to insert our opinions or enter hostile discussions, but it’s just a waste of time. Not everyone or everything deserves your attention. You’re just throwing time and energy into a sinkhole. You’re also not going to change everyone’s opinion, so invest your efforts into something better. Walking away will save you a lot of time and unnecessary headaches.
Final Note
Sales has taught me a lot about how the world works. It showed me the universal principles that connect us all. Listening, empathy and building connections with others are our greatest talents, but we seem to underutilize it. At the end of the day, I am grateful for everything that sales has done for my life and hoped to have given you a new perspective.
Originally published at https://articlesbyjulian.com on July 7, 2020.
