Circumstance doesn’t make the man, it reveals himself. A
man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts ,
and so directly, yet surely , shape his circumstances
Journey to become a door to door saleman
I remember a period of time when life constantly BEAT me up to the point
that I was LITERALLY crawling on the ground to get by. It all started from that
May, 2013. I was introduced to an internship for students called “Southwestern
Advantage Internship”. Basically, by participating in the internship, students
will become independent dealers selling Southwestern Advantage books door to
door. I was very excited about this opportunity because I love challenging
myself. Door to door sales is considered one of the toughest jobs that you can
imagine( I would recommend you to try it at least once to have a feeling if you
are also a type of person who loves challenges…haha). The guy in the video below is the best door to door saleman ever!
My expectation from the internship
I believed that I would be able to increase my sale skills dramatically by taking advantage of this opportunity. I was also expecting to do well because I was very confident in my ability to sell at that time. Prior to hearing about Southwestern, I worked for a direct-marketing company selling credit cards at different locations. I soon became the TOP sale person after four months of joining the company. The reason why I reached the top so quickly was because I regularly asked my peers on how to improve my skills. I also watched videos and read books by Joe Girard and Zig Ziglar on a regular basis.
Arrived in sales school
Anyways, back to Southwestern, I had to travel to Nashville city in the US for five days sale training. There were many other students on the
same trip with me and we travelled by long distance buses “Greyhound” instead
of airplane. It took four days for us to go from Vancouver to Nashville. Some of you might say: “OH MY GOSH! FOUR DAYS sleeping on those long
distance buses? You guys are insane!”. Haha. I KNOW RIGHT! It was very uncomfortable
sleeping on those buses and exhausting as well since we had to transfer to
multiple buses (Yet, it’s way cheaper to go by bus and you are able to see
beautiful mountain views as well…ah ha!). Finally, we arrived in Nashville and
we immediately had to follow a strict schedule. We had to wake up at 5:59 AM
and then head to sale school from our hotel. We weren’t allow to go back to the
hotel until 9:30 PM. Five days training soon
passed. We were ready to head to Toronto to sell books and life started to beat
me up from here. Click here to see people sleeping on buses and trains! Haha!Life beat me down to my knees
Here we are again, on the long distance bus to Toronto.
Unfortunately, I got a cold after I left the hotel which made my trip less
enjoyable. It was really cold on the bus and I was constantly coughing. One day
later, we arrived in Toronto. To give you more details, every student selling
books for Southwestern had to work from 7:59 AM until 9:31 PM from Monday to
Saturday. Therefore, we had no time for fun and we barely had enough time to
cook properly. As for me, I ate self-made sandwiches for the whole time. Poor
diet and intense work schedule - plus the cold I got which I hadn’t covered
after arrival, were really too much for me to handle during my first week of
selling. I didn’t have any vehicle to use so I had to walk from door to door
trying to sell the books. Sometimes it was hot or raining outside and I still
had to keep working for 13 hours every day. Imagine it's 35 celsius degree outside and you have to walk from door to door - or it's raining like dog and cat outside and you are soaked from head to toe. It was TOUGH! It was really TOUGH!! I didn’t sell anything
during my first week and I was really depressed about that. Then week after week, I could only sell to a
few people. I asked myself: “What’s going on here!!? I was so proud to be the
top sale person for that company. I was expecting to sell a lot of books. But
now, look at how pathetic I am!”. This is the 1st "revelation" of myself.
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