I started my career selling stone coated roof tiles from
site to site in Lekki, Lagos. Not only did I sell the product, but I did the
work myself and then, over the course of several years built up the business.
In fact, it was something I planned on doing for the rest of my life until I
made the decision to venture into real estate consultancy.
You need to be doing something that your heart, body and soul are in.
Prior to becoming a real estate consultant, I have been a roof contractor for the rest of my life because it was something that I understood and knew I could do well at. There was only one reason that I was successful in this business: I continued trying various combinations of things until they worked.
When I first started the business I started passing out flyers in various neighborhoods to see if people were interested in having the work done. My flyers looked good and they were printed on stationery; however, I still got very little response.
I would estimate that if I passed out 500 flyers I would be lucky to get a few phone calls about the service. The people would call on the phone and I would go out and give them an estimate and they would say ”we’re getting several estimates … we’ll let you know.”
Passing out flyers like this rarely turned up any work and after having done this for some time I started to wonder if it was even possible to make a living doing this business. I was not getting the sort of response that I was hoping for.
I became so frustrated by this that I decided that the only solution was to dramatically increase the level of my brochures circulating by trekking even farther down the nook and cranny of Lekki each day under the scourging sun.
At this stage of the game most people would quit. In fact, other people I knew that had started and gone into the business when I did ended up quitting around this time. They thought it was too difficult to get work.
They were absolutely right.
Going around and passing out flyers and mailing them was a difficult way to get work. When you did this you had to hope that the consumer might be interested in you and if they were not, you were out of luck. People are trying to sell things to people all day and why would someone want to buy what I was selling anyway?
The thing about passing out flyers, however, is that it is a good way to avoid rejection. You do not have to be there when someone takes a look at the flyer and thinks to themselves ”I have no interest in this. No thank you.”
Even when the person calls you in for an estimate you do not have to feel bad when you do not get the job. They tell you ”We are getting several estimates. We will let you know.”
When you do not get the job you simply think to yourself that the person must have got a better price, must have known someone and so forth. Your thoughts basically revolve around the fact that whatever happened, it was not your fault.
As time went by and I continued passing out more and more flyers, I quickly realized that this was not for me. I figured that the more I passed out flyers the more estimates I would be able to give but that, overall, I would never make a great living doing things this way.
It is no fun sitting by the phone waiting for it to ring with good news. This, however, is what so many people do. They sit by the phone, by the mailbox, by the email—waiting for some good news to come about. They just wait and they wait and they wait.
I decided at some point that it made absolutely no sense for me to continue sending out all of these flyers to people. I needed to find people and convince them to do roofing work with me. I wanted them to use me and I needed to get out there and hustle instead of sitting around hoping that the phone would ring. The only way I was going to make the most of my business and my life was to take action and just start talking to everyone I could.
I had a little ritual I would follow before I would go out. I would take a shower and iron a shirt and even my shorts. I would make sure I looked as good as I possibly could. I wanted to make an incredible impression.
Then I would go building site to building site in the best neighborhoods to sell my roofing services.
I immediately noticed it was working much better than the old way I was selling my services. At first I would tell people about the product and attempt to interest them in it and many people would purchase it. But it was not all that easy. People would say things like:
You need to be doing something that your heart, body and soul are in.
Prior to becoming a real estate consultant, I have been a roof contractor for the rest of my life because it was something that I understood and knew I could do well at. There was only one reason that I was successful in this business: I continued trying various combinations of things until they worked.
When I first started the business I started passing out flyers in various neighborhoods to see if people were interested in having the work done. My flyers looked good and they were printed on stationery; however, I still got very little response.
I would estimate that if I passed out 500 flyers I would be lucky to get a few phone calls about the service. The people would call on the phone and I would go out and give them an estimate and they would say ”we’re getting several estimates … we’ll let you know.”
Passing out flyers like this rarely turned up any work and after having done this for some time I started to wonder if it was even possible to make a living doing this business. I was not getting the sort of response that I was hoping for.
I became so frustrated by this that I decided that the only solution was to dramatically increase the level of my brochures circulating by trekking even farther down the nook and cranny of Lekki each day under the scourging sun.
At this stage of the game most people would quit. In fact, other people I knew that had started and gone into the business when I did ended up quitting around this time. They thought it was too difficult to get work.
They were absolutely right.
Going around and passing out flyers and mailing them was a difficult way to get work. When you did this you had to hope that the consumer might be interested in you and if they were not, you were out of luck. People are trying to sell things to people all day and why would someone want to buy what I was selling anyway?
The thing about passing out flyers, however, is that it is a good way to avoid rejection. You do not have to be there when someone takes a look at the flyer and thinks to themselves ”I have no interest in this. No thank you.”
Even when the person calls you in for an estimate you do not have to feel bad when you do not get the job. They tell you ”We are getting several estimates. We will let you know.”
When you do not get the job you simply think to yourself that the person must have got a better price, must have known someone and so forth. Your thoughts basically revolve around the fact that whatever happened, it was not your fault.
As time went by and I continued passing out more and more flyers, I quickly realized that this was not for me. I figured that the more I passed out flyers the more estimates I would be able to give but that, overall, I would never make a great living doing things this way.
It is no fun sitting by the phone waiting for it to ring with good news. This, however, is what so many people do. They sit by the phone, by the mailbox, by the email—waiting for some good news to come about. They just wait and they wait and they wait.
I decided at some point that it made absolutely no sense for me to continue sending out all of these flyers to people. I needed to find people and convince them to do roofing work with me. I wanted them to use me and I needed to get out there and hustle instead of sitting around hoping that the phone would ring. The only way I was going to make the most of my business and my life was to take action and just start talking to everyone I could.
I had a little ritual I would follow before I would go out. I would take a shower and iron a shirt and even my shorts. I would make sure I looked as good as I possibly could. I wanted to make an incredible impression.
Then I would go building site to building site in the best neighborhoods to sell my roofing services.
I immediately noticed it was working much better than the old way I was selling my services. At first I would tell people about the product and attempt to interest them in it and many people would purchase it. But it was not all that easy. People would say things like:
·
Can you supply
material to site before we pay?
·
Can you do the
work and give us few months to pay-up?
·
You can do it
but I want to wait until I get the money to do it.
The reason I was selling and
getting more work was because I was showing up and making my best impression in
order to make a good impression. However, the reason I was not selling as
effectively as I could was because I was not doing a good enough job ”closing”
and I was allowing others to control when the work was done.
I then changed my approach. I started telling people I would be on the street tomorrow and if they did not want to do it then I could not do it. I told them that in return for allowing me to do it the next day I would charge them half of what I normally would charge.
My business went through the roof. Practically most clients would do it. It worked like a charm.
It was all because I (1) got out there and (2) learned to change my approach.
So what does this mean to your career and life?
The first lesson is that you need to put yourself out there to the maximum extent you can. You need to be seen and you need to be vulnerable. When I was passing out flyers about my roof business I was not being as vulnerable as I could have been. When I was dressing up and going site to site I became vulnerable.
It is only when we make ourselves vulnerable that we can begin to reach our full potential.
I never would have succeeded in the roof business without talking to so many people. You need to get out there and meet people and continue doing it. You just cannot stop getting out there if you are looking for a business or job.
You need to get out there. If you are just applying to jobs on job sites you may get results—but imagine how different the results would be if you went door-to-door. I can assure you that you might piss some people off (I did selling roof), you might get some rejection (Casanova certainly did), but you will end up better in the long run.
Maybe you feel you are in a profession where you cannot go door-to-door like this (even if you are in law or medicine, I can assure you are not)—if you truly believe this then use the phone. The more ”in your face” you are with your job search work the better the results you will get.
In order to face so much rejection, though, your heart needs to be in whatever you are doing. This is a must.
You need to be doing something that you like. If you are not happy in what you are doing, or if you are not meant to do what you are doing, you are never going to have the passion and desire to really make the most of yourself. You need to be 100% behind what you are doing with your heart, body and soul.
Your career? Your heart needs to be in the work.
The reason that your heart, body and soul need to be in your work is because when you go out into the world to do that work you are going to face rejection. The best people in any profession are those who are not afraid to take risks and put themselves out there. You need to be willing to face rejection all the time. You are going to get a ton of rejection when you believe in something. You are always going to get lots of rejection.
Tons of it.
One of my favorite stories about rejection is found in Chapter 2 of the book ‘Think and Grow Rich’ where Napoleon Hill writes:
I then changed my approach. I started telling people I would be on the street tomorrow and if they did not want to do it then I could not do it. I told them that in return for allowing me to do it the next day I would charge them half of what I normally would charge.
My business went through the roof. Practically most clients would do it. It worked like a charm.
It was all because I (1) got out there and (2) learned to change my approach.
So what does this mean to your career and life?
The first lesson is that you need to put yourself out there to the maximum extent you can. You need to be seen and you need to be vulnerable. When I was passing out flyers about my roof business I was not being as vulnerable as I could have been. When I was dressing up and going site to site I became vulnerable.
It is only when we make ourselves vulnerable that we can begin to reach our full potential.
I never would have succeeded in the roof business without talking to so many people. You need to get out there and meet people and continue doing it. You just cannot stop getting out there if you are looking for a business or job.
You need to get out there. If you are just applying to jobs on job sites you may get results—but imagine how different the results would be if you went door-to-door. I can assure you that you might piss some people off (I did selling roof), you might get some rejection (Casanova certainly did), but you will end up better in the long run.
Maybe you feel you are in a profession where you cannot go door-to-door like this (even if you are in law or medicine, I can assure you are not)—if you truly believe this then use the phone. The more ”in your face” you are with your job search work the better the results you will get.
In order to face so much rejection, though, your heart needs to be in whatever you are doing. This is a must.
You need to be doing something that you like. If you are not happy in what you are doing, or if you are not meant to do what you are doing, you are never going to have the passion and desire to really make the most of yourself. You need to be 100% behind what you are doing with your heart, body and soul.
Your career? Your heart needs to be in the work.
The reason that your heart, body and soul need to be in your work is because when you go out into the world to do that work you are going to face rejection. The best people in any profession are those who are not afraid to take risks and put themselves out there. You need to be willing to face rejection all the time. You are going to get a ton of rejection when you believe in something. You are always going to get lots of rejection.
Tons of it.
One of my favorite stories about rejection is found in Chapter 2 of the book ‘Think and Grow Rich’ where Napoleon Hill writes:
As this chapter was being completed, news came of the
death of Mme. Schuman-Heink. One short paragraph in the news dispatch gives the
clue to this unusual woman’s stupendous success as a singer. I quote the
paragraph, because the clue it contains is none other than DESIRE.
I believe in the power of DESIRE backed by FAITH, because I have seen this power lift men from lowly beginnings to places of power and wealth; I have seen it rob the grave of its victims; I have seen it serve as the medium by which men staged a comeback after having been defeated in a hundred different ways; I have seen it provide my own son with a normal, happy, successful life, despite Nature’s having sent him into the world without ears.
I believe in the power of DESIRE backed by FAITH, because I have seen this power lift men from lowly beginnings to places of power and wealth; I have seen it rob the grave of its victims; I have seen it serve as the medium by which men staged a comeback after having been defeated in a hundred different ways; I have seen it provide my own son with a normal, happy, successful life, despite Nature’s having sent him into the world without ears.
You need to desire to succeed in
whatever you are doing and make sure that it matches exactly who you are and
want to be. Your heart needs to be in what you are doing and you need to be
behind it 100%. If you are not behind what you are doing you are going to fail
because in order to succeed in your business and career, your heart, body and
soul need to be in the game.
I regularly write about the human side of business. If you would like to read my regular posts, please click 'Follow' (at the top of the page) and send me a LinkedIn invite. And, of course, feel free to also connect via Twitter, facebook, google plus.
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