Skill 01 · Sales
Cold to closed.
There have only ever been four ways to make a living. Hunt. Beg. Steal. Sell. Hunting, begging and stealing didn't seem reasonable. So I chose sell, thinking it was one skill. Every month it handed me another one.
I thought sales was a product going to a person. A pitch, a price, a handshake.
It's getting another human to see what you see, and act on it.
What pulled me in was the range
Fieldwork, engineering, copywriting, storytelling, negotiation. I didn't sign up for five majors.
01
Feet
Walking Ponce City Market shop to shop, introducing myself to whoever was behind the counter.
02
Voice
Cold calling HVAC and roofing companies who had no reason to pick up.
03
Desk
Scraping retail stores across the country, and learning that a company isn't a lead. Somewhere inside it is one person who can actually say yes, and finding them is its own job.
04
Sentence
One sentence, written well enough that a stranger reads the second one.
05
Room
Holding a number when someone leans on it.
The room part
The stack
Every piece of it is really psychology wearing a different outfit. The list is about relevance. The subject line is about attention. The ask is about how much it costs someone to move.
“Most people reading this are selling and would deny it. Which of the six are you actually on?”
From the post — hunt, beg, steal, sell, invest, inherit