The Miraculous, Curative Power of Selling!

Jim’s dad died when he was just 15, and he had a stay-at-home mom who didn’t have marketable skills.

So he dropped out of high school to work, choosing encyclopedia sales as his ticket to an income sufficient to support himself and his mom.

There was only one small, technical difficulty.

Jim had a terrible speech impediment, a stutter, so how could he make it through presentations?

He asked for a glass of water before he started his pitches, and when he began to stutter, he took a sip.

He was always well hydrated.

But he was also well compensated, because he simply had to succeed. There was no other option.

As his success grew, his stuttering improved until it became barely discernable.

Jim went on to publish his own encyclopedias and he started a finance company to make them affordable. Now, he and his family live in one of the most beautiful and famous golf communities in America.

This goes to show the curative power of selling.

One of my consulting clients told me, “I’ve never met a problem in business that a few more sales couldn’t cure!”

Let me add to his thought.

I’ve never met a problem in my personal life that a few more sales couldn’t cure, either!

One of them is SHYNESS.

When I started to sell I was a shy, 19 year-old teenager, but pleasantly, people took me seriously because I initiated my career by working on the phone. I can’t tell you how broadening and confidence-building it was to successfully persuade mature businesspeople, many decades my senior, to buy what I was offering.

Every “yes” I got chipped away at my shyness and insecurity, and this benefit carried over into interpersonal relationships, face-to-face selling and to public speaking.

So, the next time someone thinks he needs one of those pills that you hear touted on TV for “social anxiety” or some other disorder that involves a lack of self-confidence, do him a favor.