Pushing up People

by Art Williams

A man who started out with me in the early days of our company is one of the people who proved this philosophy to me. When we met, he was a basketball coach making $6,000 a year He had never sold anything when he joined our company as a sales rep. He was very nervous and didn’t have a lot of confidence. The first time I asked him to speak at a company gathering, he was so shaken he got sick. The second time, he almost passed out on stage. But he wanted to be somebody, and he believed in the principles of our company, so he stuck it out. Every day, he would go out and try to make sales. I knew he was dying inside every time he went out on a sales call. He agonized over every appointment, and couldn’t disguise a sense of relief when someone cancelled. But he got up every day and went out anyway. His first year he made $5,000. Ninety-nine percent of the people would have quit then. The second year he made $9,000. He went to those appointments, and he made those presentations because he believed what he was doing was right. He got doors slammed in his face over and over again. The third year, he made $18,000. He was getting better at his business. Finally, everything clicked. The fourth year, he made $100,000, and the fifth he made a quarter of a million dollars. Given what this man went through, most people would have quit the first week. Selling never came less naturally to anyone than it did to him. But he made a decision to give it his best shot, and he just wouldn’t be de...