How Learning To Sell Can Change Your Life - Ep. 58

Ryan: Aloha folks and welcome back to Degree Free. We are your hosts, Ryan and Hannah Maruyama on this podcast. We share fundamentals we've discovered. The mistakes we've made while self-educating, getting work. Building businesses, and making money. We'll tell you how to make it happen. No degree needed. 

Hannah: Welcome back everybody. And I know for a fact that you wanna get our newsletter because why would you not? So if you wanna get degree free job ideas, degree free resources, degree free news, like companies that are rolling back degree requirements and other cool stuff that Ryan and I find you are gonna wanna run, not walk over to degreefree.co/newsletter to sign up for that.

So run on over and do that now. 

Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. Let's get into today's episode. Today, we are gonna be talking about how learning to sell can change your life. 

Hannah: Oh boy, can't it. 

Ryan: This is something that we are very very passionate about. we'll. Talk about it in this episode, right? Learning to sell changed our lives.

Hannah: Yeah, because it kind of branches. Sales branches into everything. It comes across in the way that you, it's even like selling your idea. To a group of people to say, Hey guys, we should do this. You know, Hey folks, I think if we did it like this. So it comes, it ..Comes into play, getting buy-in for even getting a group of people to go to a certain restaurant that you wanna go to.

Right. If you're trying to wrangle a group of your friends, like, okay, well it has this, this, and this. And and this is how far it is. So let's go on over there, right. That's sales in a way, or getting someone to hire you, just so many things. 

Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. 

And I think what a lot of people think about when they think of sales, as they think of like sleazy salesmen. 

Hannah: They think of Danny DeVito from Matilda, 

Ryan: Right. They think of sales and a lot of people just have a general allergy to sales, which, alright, that's fine. But you know, to skip forward to the end, as you said already, Once we've learned how to sell, we realize that everything is sales. 

Hannah: And a lot of people do sales in the way that I'm talking about it by convincing people of things all the time. And they just don't realize that's what they're doing. 

Ryan: Right, exactly. 

So today we're gonna be talking about, just going over stories of how we learn how to sell, our work background, how we learn sales and how we use sales to future our careers and how we use it today. Right? Cause it really affects everywhere of your life. 

Hannah: It really does. 

Ryan: So I guess a good place to start is when did you first learn how to sell. Even though you didn't know that you were selling 

Hannah: Well, I think this one's pretty easy. 

 I started working in the service industry when I was 16 and some change. It was not my first job, but, it was my, I think biggest job was working in a restaurant with my brother actually, and I started waitressing. And so I started to sell, upsell appetizers, upsell desserts, upsell bar drinks, because I was trying to get my check averages higher.

Right. 

Because when you just start working, especially in service industry, you're still learning the ropes. So you're all focused on the service aspect of it. But at most restaurants, like the tier of the one that I was working at, your check averages are the thing that make you tips, right?

So if you, if you get them to a $60 check, you're much more likely to make money than it stays at a $17 check. So, you know, I was just like, Hey, you know, this is the best thing to go with this. And I was sincere in it, but that really taught me to sell good things, but also to sell in order to get check averages up.

'Cause that's when I was making more money. . 

Ryan: Yeah, definitely. And my experience is basically the same as well. I first learned how to sell without really knowing that I was selling at 18. I started in the restaurant industry at the same time, as you did at 16, but in Hawaii you can't serve alcohol and you can't serve alcohol until you're 18.

And so the place that I worked also had there weren't, it wasn't a bar, it was a diner, but they had beer and so they had beer and wine. So, I couldn't be a server until I was 18. 

Hannah: What's so funny. Is that in Georgia when I turned 18, I became a bartender because in Georgia you can be a bartender before you can drink. Crazy, right?

Ryan: Yeah. 

I think you can do that in Hawaii too. 

Hannah: Oh, Kenny? 

Ryan: Yeah. Pretty positive. 

Hannah: Oh, they'll let you. 

Ryan: I think so. I don't know. I don't know anymore. Interesting. I don't know anymore how you call some of my friends that are still in the industry and doing that. And if you guys know, please correct me, contact at degreefree.co please 

tell 

Hannah: us how wrong we are. 

Ryan: Yes, I would. 

I would love to. 

I love it. 

and so, you know, it's interesting. Think about thinking about it now. I, the way that I got that job, I started, I started as a dishwasher when I was 16 years old. And I knew that I wanted to be a server because I knew that they made the most money in the entire restaurant.

Right. They probably made more than managers at the time. I'm pretty sure that they did, and. Even though I wasn't 18 yet. I told them my goals, and so I started working on it until I was 18. I worked my way from a dishwasher to a cook, and then I had to get cashier. Experience, I did cashier, but anyway, when I turned 18, there was a long line of people in front of me.

There was like six to eight people in front of me that were 

Hannah: to be servers, 

Ryan: Right. To be servers. Exactly. This is not really relevant to the story, but I'll just tell that anyway. And there was about six to eight people in front of me to be a server and. It was all experience or seniority or however they made it.

But when I turned 18, there was a spot open for a server and it was on the graveyard shift and they went down the list, they asked all the six to eight people who's willing to work graveyards. Right. I mean, it was 10 to 6:00 AM in the morning. It was a 24-hour diner. And I was just like, I mean, when it got to me, I was like, yeah, I'll do it.

I was like, I mean, I'm a server, right? Like I just have to work those shifts, but if I need to, I can pick up regular money making shifts. And they were like, yeah, you'll be a server. I mean, that's not what you're gonna be working. You're gonna be working the, whatever it was the Monday to Thursday, 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM in the morning.

But, and those, so those aren't even one, those are dead hours. That's not even like the Saturday. That's not even the Friday 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM. That's not like where you get the drunk people coming in. 

Hannah: So you don't even get the party people. 

Ryan: Right. Exactly. Or the Saturday where you get the drunk people, people coming in.

 It's just, you just get the weekday weird people like me that is up, 

Hannah: that are awake at that time. 

Ryan: Right? Exactly. You just do the weird people like me that are awake. And so I was just like, Yeah, I'll I'll do it. Sure. And so I ended up training, so I skipped all these people and they were all okay with it because 

Hannah: they didn't wanna work that shift.

I'm sure 

Ryan: they didn't wanna work their graveyard, but they were asked. What is interesting fast forward a few weeks after training, right before I finished training somebody quit or something happened. There was a opening on the swing and the morning shifts at the restaurant as a server. Instead of asking somebody else, the first person on the list, if they wanted to do it, to ask me because I was trained, right. I was just coming out. I was just coming outta training and I was just like, yeah, sure. Right. And so I just totally skipped a line of eight people, six, eight people, whatever it was, and I became a server.

Hannah: Ah, because you were already trained. 

Ryan: Right. And just by willing. by being willing to do what other people weren't willing to do. I was totally willing to work graveyard. Yeah. But it ended up, I never had to work one. Cause the trainings were in the day too. 

Hannah: Did the person who trained after you end up taking those graveyard shifts?

Ryan: Yeah, they did. They did. Interesting. Yep. I was wondering about that cause I was like, huh. Well, so someone still had to take those shifts. Right? So whoever was in line after you. Or, or rather in front of you in front of me. 

Yeah, exactly. Huh. Right. And you know, and they were like, that's not fair. It's like, I don't know.

You weren't like, you didn't wanna do it. 

Hannah: Yeah.

Ryan: And then I'm trained. Doesn't make sense they need somebody for the money making shifts because they're busy because the restaurant itself is busy. Yeah. So why wait six weeks or four weeks

Hannah: to train, 

Ryan: to train you when I've been in the training program and I'm done.

Hannah: And then they're running short on the floor. 

Ryan: Yeah. Right. 

Hannah: That doesn't make any sense. 

Ryan: Doesn't make any sense.

Hannah: It was just passively resistance. 

Ryan: Right? Exactly. 

 It just, I just got the job by being willing to do what other people weren't willing to do

Hannah: hm. That's a good lesson. 

Ryan: That was a super duper, huge tangent.

Hannah: Good story though. 

Ryan: Maybe, we'll see. 

Hannah: There's a lesson there maybe

Ryan: There's-

Hannah: something, 

Ryan: something, I don't know, but anyway, that is where I learned sales for the first time. Right? Same thing, selling $6 eggs selling 

Hannah: check averages,

Ryan: Right. Selling $8 bowls with noodles. 

Simon, for those that know what Simon is ramen for other people, 

Hannah: I was selling crab legs, and lava cakes and hush puppies. 

Ryan: Right. You know, I graduated, I did the dining room server thing years later. Right where I moved up to a medium chain restaurant and then I did a bartender thing. 

Hannah: Yeah. 

You and I basically did the same thing. Right, exactly.

 But then 

Ryan: where did you learn, but where did you actually learn sales? Like when you knew it was sales. 

Hannah: So my first, I'll say degree required job. So my first job that I got that required a college degree or supposedly did, obviously, cuz it didn't- 

Ryan: For those that are listening or not watching, she did the air quotes.

Yes. Degree required jobs. If you guys are regular listener,

Hannah: I usually do that with degree required jobs. 

Ryan: We all know that's not a thing. 

Hannah: Unless you're an astronaut. My first degree required job air quotes, was actually working at a nonprofit and, this one will probably rile some feathers.

But. A lot of people will say that nonprofits don't sell things. That's not true. Every entity that is trying to make money in any way is selling something, and sometimes even like anyone who's trying to get anything really, which is everybody is selling something. Maybe that's a pessimistic way to look at the world, but I did see that in the nonprofit world.

So what nonprofits are selling is they're selling tax benefits and they're selling the benefits of whatever work and mission that they do, and the feeling that someone gets from donating to them, to their donors, that's what they're selling, and so what was interesting about that was I got, I was able to be. As a fundraiser, as a development representative, you're able to be in a room with people who are able to give, to donate to the nonprofit you're representing. And so what it enabled me to do was realize that like breakdown, tactics and I, the guy who was in charge of me, the development director gave me books that you and I have talked about on this podcast. They gave me, he gave me the 22 immutable laws of marketing and then, there's another sales book that I already forgot the name of, 

Ryan: but we'll try to remember it and putting the show notes for everybody.

Hannah: Yeah, I'll try to remember. I think he might've been another Jack Trout, Al Ries.

Ryan: Reese rise, 

Hannah: Rise, Reese. Yeah, it was another one of those, but he gave me those two books and it's funny too. Cause at the time I like. I kicked up a big fuss about being given homework , but I ended up reading those books much later, realizing that at the entire time I was doing sales, whereas while I was there, I was insistent that I wasn't doing sales, but that's exactly what I was doing.

 And so what you're doing is you're listening to their you're listening to their, wants to their needs. Um, and then you're marketing you're selling the mission and the benefits of the nonprofit to the person who you're about to ask for money, basically, and it was interesting cuz it was just more, the asks that I was making were just like more money than I'd ever thought of in my life.

You know what I mean? It was just like a, just asking for the amount of money that I was asking for. Like making that ask was sales, that's sales, that's a sales tactic. And if they say no, continuing to try to get past it. Is sales. That's a fundamental, that's just sales. That's all it is. 

Ryan: Yeah. That whole experience with you.

I remember that when you took that job and when you transitioned roles into that job, I remember you being insistent that, that wasn't sales. And I was like, I was like looking at myself. I was thinking,

Hannah: seems like sales 

Ryan: seems like sales. 

Oh, they, I don't know. I'm not a mathematician or anything like that, but it seems like sales. 

Hannah: Both you and the development director were correct about that.

Ryan: Right? Exactly.

Hannah: Who's wrong about that? Me 

I was. 

I also came out of that as, as an aside, I came out of that with viewing that only giving to nonprofits that feed people or heal people because nonprofits in general, just the whole, it's a whole thing. 

Ryan: Yeah. That's another thing we'll get into later.

Hannah: But, the second place, the place that I really learned it, I think was, working at a call center. I worked at a call center in the tourism industry, selling timeshare, basically time-sharing activities, and that was sales. That's all. It was, it was a combination of cold calling and inbound leads for activities.

And you basically would just try to get them to go on a timeshare tour or you'd try to sell them tours and activities, and it was really cool, because that experience really helped me with the know with quickly connecting with people. And then I also found that, as I was working on a team and there was one guy that was man.

He could just crank through the calls. Like he could take so many calls and he'd been working there for a long time and he was super professional and really good at what he did, and, you know, and they were like, yeah, he, you know, he's the best, blah, blah, blah, cuz he could just take, he could take so many calls in a day and I was, my calls were taking much longer, but what I was doing was instead, I was like, I wanna see if this works.

And so what I started to do was focus on selling larger ticket items. So I would sell like instead of selling to snorkeling tours for 40 bucks, I would try to sell them, renting out the whole boat. For their 12 person, whatever. So they can go around the island, they could do whatever and doing that. I didn't find out until much later. But I ended up selling the most because I was doing that, which that's pure sales tactics, right. It's volume versus call 

Ryan: volume

Hannah: volume versus 

Ryan: Call volume versus sales volume. 

Hannah: Right. Versus sales volume versus yeah. Versus dollar volume. So, yeah, it's super interesting though.

I learned a lot doing that and also I was terrified to answer the phone. As most millennials are anyone who's afraid of answering the phone. If you work at a call center for a few months, you will be completely cured of fear of answering the phone, because you can't, you, you just can't, but I hated, hated, hated.

I cannot stress enough answering the phone when I started working at that call center. And by the end of it, it was like, I don't have issues with that anymore. 

So, highly highly recommend if you're looking to get over a fear of phone calls. 

Ryan: Yeah, definitely. Before I kind of get into my background of how I learned sales, I want to talk about what your experience as a nonprofit fundraiser, as a nonprofit salesperson, basically.

What it reminded me of is, and we've talked about it before on the podcast, but you have this friend that very nice person, but she went around and she sold people college. 

Hannah: Yeah.

Ryan: Right. And she sold people. Some of, if not the most expensive thing ever in their life, the at least top two. But she had no idea.

Hannah: And the particular school she's selling for is like unbelievably, unbelievably costly. 

Ryan: Right.

And so it's like, I met her, we met up with her. And I met her. I was like, oh, what do you do? And she's like, oh, you know, I just go around, give PowerPoint presentations to high school, seniors and juniors

Hannah: and their parents 

Ryan: and their parents, and tell them about the benefits of going to this school.

Right. And I'm just like, oh, right on. You're in sales, like awesome, good job. And she would just like, no, no, no. 

Hannah: She almost like physically report. 

Ryan: No, no, no, no. I'm not in sales. I'm just like,

Hannah: yes you are.

Ryan: I'm like, whoa. . I was like, buddy, I, I dunno how to tell you this. You are totally in sales, not only that you are in like the most expensive sales ever

Hannah: there's home sales, and then there's you 

Ryan: bummer for her though?

She didn't realize that she was in sales and then so they put her on salary, cuz we knew that what did, you're making 60 something thousand, 80,000, whatever, something like that, whatever it was even, it was less than six figures. And even if it was a little bit more than six figures, only a little bit, it wasn't nearly enough for what she did, which is travel the country and sell a super expensive product. 

Hannah: So expensive.

Ryan: If you just realize this was sales, you would be able to ask for, I mean, maybe not commission, but you'd be able to ask for a lot more. 

Hannah: Yeah. 

Ryan: Like, that's crazy.

Hannah: Yeah. 

Ryan: Anyway, so everything sales, sorry. Everything is salespeople . So the way that I got into sales was else was from pretty much exactly your second point was with. I got in through timeshare sales and 

Hannah: Ryan and I have an undying admiration for the hustle, people that sell timeshare. Nobody can, nobody, there is nobody. I don't think they can grind out sales like timeshare people. It's unbelievable. 

Ryan: These guys, 

these guys, the people that I. Did timeshare sales with?

Hannah: Well, the ones that I did too. 

Ryan: They are, well, you don't know what I'm about to say. The people 

Hannah: oh, nevermind. 

Ryan: The people that I did, timeshare sales with these guys were hardcore- 

Hannah: street hustlers 

Ryan: street, hustlers. They were fueled by nothing but anger, cocaine and fireball. 

Hannah: Yep. That's accurate.

Ryan: Like. These guys 

these guys.

They knew how to club you over the head and take your money. And you would just thank them all day. You'd be like, thank you so much. 

It's hard to, unless you see it up close and it's like they're, but they were man. They were good. Yeah, man. They were good. 

And you know, I remember.

Hannah: Yeah. Not the same for the people I worked with. 

Ryan: So you, right. Well, it was also different because you worked in a call center. 

Hannah: Yeah. 

Ryan: Right. So you and I developed, although we were selling very similar products, you did a similar thing didn't mean, but what I did was different than what you did. 

Hannah: Yeah. Cuz it was street selling.

Ryan: Right. So I actually stood out on the corner on the street and I tried to get you to come to a timeshare presentation. 

Hannah: Yeah. And I had warm leads and I had inbound calls. 

Ryan: Right. And I didn't have any of that. 

I just stopped you.

Yeah. On the street 

I stopped you. And I made you, I convinced you to do something that you didn't wanna do,

Hannah: You know, like those guys in the, in the, those guys, those folks in the mall with the hair straighteners and the creams, that stopping.

Ryan: Right. And we talked about, we've talked about this at length before, so I won't go into going into it too much, but I do remember when I first learned the seven steps of selling and you can just Google this. We'll put some, resources in the show notes for you guys, degreefree.co, and you guys can look over this stuff, but the steps of selling are all pretty similar. They vary a little bit based off of what industry you're in and what you're selling. Right.

Hannah: And who you're selling to. 

Ryan: And who you're selling to. 

Yeah. Yeah, sure. Right. 

So I think the first step of selling in like the seven steps of selling is. Discovery or something like that or preparation or something like that.

So I'll just go over real fast, cuz you can read the articles that we're gonna, we're gonna link in the show notes, but , the first one was the stop cuz I was out on the street. Right. I didn't have inbound calls. I didn't have any leads to call. I wasn't given phone numbers or anything like that.

I had to physically stop people sometimes literally putting my body in front of their body in order to get, get them to stop. Hey, slow down. Right? Like. God excuse me. Ma'am, sir, do you believe in the Easter bunny? Not a great hit rate on that one. Not a great hit rate on that one

Hannah: memorable though, 

Ryan: but you would get somebody that stopped eventually.

Right? And the, usually it was usually was a guy on that one. Usually I'm looking for couples and so usually the guy would turn around and he'd look back. He'd be like, nah, man. I saw believing an Easter bunny about 20 years ago. And then I like, he engaged with me. I got him. So I get up from my stool and I go chase after him.

Right. I go chase after him. And I'm just like

Hannah: his first mistake. 

Ryan: Right? Exactly. Don't engage me. 

Hannah: Don't talk to you. 

Ryan: Don't. Talk to me. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go talk to you cuz you gave me an in, right? And now we're gonna, now we're gonna talk about the Easter money. Yep. And it'll be like, why are you here? Let's talk about, let's talk about why are you're here?

Let's talk about vacations. Let's talk about, about how I can save you money on the vacations. Here we go.

Hannah: And now it's done. 

Ryan: right. Exactly. 

And so the first thing is just getting them to stop. That was ours. The second part was discovery. Right? Asking questions. Right. And mind you, I remember when I learned this, . I was sitting down at a very cold and dank bar that I used to work at that I just got fired from. Actually, that's a story for a different time. I just got fired from working behind that bar. 

Hannah: Now you're sitting on the other side of it.

Ryan: Now I'm sitting on the other side of it, maybe like the same week and

Hannah: as one does,

Ryan: Right.

It's the middle of the day. You can't tell, cause this bar is super dark. Like it is crazy dark.

Hannah: It wouldn't matter . 

Ryan: It's crazy. Dark. It's like the bat cave in there, and my trainer. Is teaching me this and he's writing this down on a bar napkin. He's writing down the seven steps on a bar napkin and we're sharing a Fireball whiskey. I mean, we have separate glasses.

Hannah: That's good. 

Ryan: We have separate glasses. We're - 

Hannah: sanitary and all 

Ryan: yeah, exactly. 

Hannah: Like I know it's a bar in, you know, at one o'clock in the afternoon, but have a little dignity. 

Ryan: I think it was like 11. I think it was like 11. 

Hannah: Perfect, good. 

Ryan: Right. Exactly. 

And, he's teaching me the discovery. Right. And so he is like, you gotta ask questions, right?

 That's our job. Our job is to ask questions, to see, what their deal is. And that leads us into the next step, which is qualifying. For what we were looking for, we were looking for qualified candidates in order to come and do a timeshare presentation. Right. I mean, wasn't timeshare that we were selling, but similar enough, that that's what we're gonna call it.

And right where I was looking, I was looking for couples. I was looking for people. So if I just, if I just had a single, I would be like, you know, are you. If it's just a guy, I'd be like, oh, are you here with your, are you here with your wife or your family here right now? And I'm just trying to qualify them the entire time.

Right. While I'm talking with them. And then he's like, No. I'm, you know, actually I'm, this is a solo trip for me. We didn't take solo, man. So I'd just cut him loose. I'd be like, oh, okay. Right on. Awesome. Right. Yeah. Good trip. Yeah. Have a good trip. So he'd be like, no, no, no. But how about, how about you help me get on the trolley.

He'd be like, no, I'm good, man.

Hannah: He just wandered around the rest of the day. Never gets on the trolley at all. 

Yeah. 

Oh my God. 

Ryan: I know this is terrible, but then the next, step four was the pitch. 

Right. 

And tell them what you got for them. If they were qualified, if you could tell 'em. So tell 'em about the timeshare. Tell 'em about how we already know how they vacation, cuz I already asked 'em in the discovery.

We already know that they're married. Cuz I asked them already, you know, 

Hannah: they go to the same place. They do the same things. Like so the product that you're selling makes sense for them because it actually, you know, they're like, oh yeah, this actually is a good product for you. 

Ryan: Exactly. Or at. You tell them

Hannah: you're a good fit for it.

Ryan: You tell them enough to get 'em interested at that point. Right. Right. Cause I wasn't, I'm not trying to close sales at the time. I'm just trying to agree. I'm just trying to have them agree to hear it. Agree to hear a sales pitch later. So it's technically sales development or sales marketing.

Hannah: Mm-hmm 

Ryan: but it's sales. 

Hannah: Yeah.

Ryan: The next thing is gonna be overcoming objections for what I was selling. Overcoming objections was literally everything. I mean, that's for all sales, right. But I mean,

Hannah: no, but really 

Ryan: everything, right? I mean, there was so many reasons under the sun, why you don't want us to give up two hours of your life, even though I'm gonna give you $150 worth of free stuff.

Mm-hmm right. I get it right. But I had to hone in on those things and overcome those notes. The basic things were gonna be like money and time. Those were always

Hannah: odds too early. 

Oh, we don't have time. 

Ryan: Yeah. We don't have time or I don't need the money. 

Cause I was just trying to give you free stuff.

I mean, not free. 

If you're gonna pay with, you're gonna pay

Hannah: with time

Ryan: for it with your time. So it's overcoming objections and some people, a trust is a big one. Right. And they're like, why would you give me something for free?

Hannah: Because they just met you five minutes, right?

Ryan: Yeah. I just met you for five minutes, five minutes ago. Why are you gonna give me $200 worth of product for free? And like, that's a great question. Right? That's a great that's. And so that's their objection, right? They don't trust you. Look, I'm not giving you anything for free. You're gonna pay it with your time.

Like you're gonna pay with your time. But you don't have to buy anything. I just want you to sit there. I just want you to sit there. Which I really did actually. I don't care if you buy. Yeah. Right. Like I got paid. If you went and then I did make money if you bought whatever.

Hannah: Yeah. But your goal was to get,

Ryan: but for the most part I just wanted you to go in. The numbers game and the next thing was gonna be step six was closing. Right. So take their money. And then the last close, the next one was following up. Some people would usually , the presentation was the very next day and so you gotta make sure in a, in order for us to get paid, we would have to make sure that they got there. 

So our, our follow up was, okay, well, here's all the parking, here's the parking situation. Where are you staying? Let me call you an Uber 7:30 be downstairs. So we would, we'd arrange an Uber for them or something like that, right?

Oh, that's our version of follow up right in the morning we wake up and we give our, we give, you know, our couples a call and we say, Hey, it's Ryan from the timeshare company. Just making sure making sure that you don't have any final questions before you go on your tour of the property or whatever.

The Uber will be downstairs at 7:30. And so we go into another how to do sales later, but I just wanted to talk about like how I learned it and, the steps of selling. For those that don't know anything about sales, which I know a lot of, 

Hannah: a lot of people don't

Ryan: a lot of people don't. Right?

The 22 amenable laws of marketing is a good one, right? 

Hannah: Very 

Ryan: We mentioned in the last episode and we can't mention it enough though, How to Win Friends and Influence People. 

Hannah: Guys read this book. I'm telling you, 

Ryan: it's a huge one.

Hannah: You need to, 

Ryan: you know, 

Hannah: it's a small book. , it's hugely important. 

Ryan: Yeah.

Influence Robert chaldini. That's a really good one as well. 

For me. I don't know if we mentioned this last week or not, but for me. There's a book called Getting Past No and that was super helpful for that portion of my life. The reason why is because, like I said, it was all objections. It was just trying, it was just how to overcome them.

Right. And that book really really helped. And there's another book called Getting to Yes, but I feel that's more of a negotiation. I forget what it's, they're both by William Yuri and then I think he might have coauthors or whatever, but those are super helpful. Getting past no for sales for me was super important.

Right. There's links to all this in the show notes and everything that you don't have to remember it or anything degreefree.co. 

So I guess moving on, I guess I wanna know, like how. Have you used sales after learning? 

Hannah: Well, I think this applies to both of us.

After we learned how to sell, it breaks a lot of barriers.

It breaks down a lot of fear barriers. I think you'd have to starting your own business too. As well as asking for employment, but really starting your own business because the hardest thing I think, and, I think a lot of people think this about starting a business is you have to sell stuff. A lot of people will say they wanna start a business, or I wanna do this, but they don't, they're too afraid to sell anything. They can't even take a dollar. They're too afraid to ask for a dollar from someone. And it's like, man, if you can't do that, you can't run a business because that's what a business is, right? A business is sales.

And so for you, and I, you know, that led to us starting our tattoo shop, right. That led to us starting our cosmetics tattoo shop and being able to sell face to face, you know, to a client and that was huge because that was really difficult. And we were making big asks and we were making them often. And so I think that both of us, that experience of learning how to sell led directly into our tattoo shop, being successful and growing.

Ryan: Yeah, definitely. 

It definitely what learning sales helped with for me was giving me confidence. Right. I think that was a huge one. It was just that 

Hannah: the nose slide off easier too. 

Ryan: The nose do slide off easier, especially when you're on the street, man. I mean, you get to-

You come back, you come back from eight hours of just standing on the street and you got told no, like.

I don't know, 200 times maybe.

Hannah: I do wanna say this, for people that are struggling with like self-confidence, or you need to learn how to be more bold. It's hard to beat that type of experience. Right? Cause most people don't get told no that many times in a day it's and you just have to.

You just have to get in yourself and just go, okay, like gotta do it again tomorrow. Right? You like, you gotta, you gotta keep going. And eventually you get, eventually you get a yes. Right? Because asking, asking the same question enough times you'll get a yes, eventually, cuz you'll figure out how to ask it in a way where you get a yes.

 It may take you a thousand times. It may take you 10,000 times, but you're eventually gonna get a yes. And so for people that are wanting to learn how to overcome shyness or hesitancy or confidence issues, learning how to sell can really really help with that. 

Ryan: Yeah, definitely. It definitely did with me at least.

And so now I knew that. I could sell something right. Once I learned it formally, at least the process, I realized that I could take this skill and apply it to anything and everything else. 

Hannah: I remember you saying to me at one point, you're like, I know that I can take this and I can always provide for my family with this, cuz I can do anything with this.

I remember you saying that to me. And that was that I remember that being a huge thing that came out of that experience too.

Ryan: Yeah, definitely. And that's part of the reason why it changed our lives or my life. Right. 

And that's something that we told our contractors when we were training them at our tattoo shop at our cosmetic tattoo shop.

Right. Like a lot of, obviously you have to be good at the service that you provide. Right. Any service, right. You have to be, you've gotta be good at lawn care. Right. I mean, if you're gonna start a lawn care, if you're gonna start a pet grooming business or whatever it is, you've gotta, 

Hannah: your product's gotta be good.

Ryan: You've gotta know how to do it. Yeah. Right. And that's a whole beast in it, of itself. Right. That being said, like you said, you have to know how to sell. And so when we were training our, when we were training our contractors to do it, the people that worked for us or with us rather, we, the majority of their training was like formal in front of us was sales.

Because you can be great at the service. Right. You can be great at it, but it doesn't matter if you're not selling anything. 

Hannah: It's interesting that sales get such a bad rap, right. Because people think, oh, I don't know if people just think that they'll just organically buy things without being sold them. Right. But you'd never know a product was good unless you bought it. And that means that someone had to sell it to you, someone, something, some process, some system sold it to you. Um, and it, it, it is interesting though that people like look down on it so much when realistically speaking, you don't know if a product or service is good, unless you buy it.

And in order to buy something, you have to be sold it. It's just the way it's just the way of the world. 

Ryan: And so the last thing we wanna talk about is how we use sales today. And like, I guess how it changed our lives, which we kind of talked about already. 

Learning sales completely changed the trajectory of our lives.

Right. I mean, to bring it back to that story of me learning sales, we had just been fired from our jobs. 

Hannah: I got this fired.

Ryan: Right. Sure. And that's a story for another time, but you know, we both got fired from our jobs as bartenders and. I needed to learn a skill I needed something and I learned how to sell and I was lucky enough and I put enough hard work in, you know, lucky quote unquote that I picked up on it.

And I was able to make a living out of it in a tight time. Cuz we didn't have money to be unemployed. 

Hannah: No, 

No, we did not. 

Ryan: Yeah. 

And so. You know, you'll find that once you learn the sales technique, it can be useful pretty much anywhere in your life. 

Hannah: Well, branching off of, of what I said that Ryan told me about being able to, you know, he was like, I can provide for my family in any circumstance with this skillset. 

What that also comes with is a level of self security. And I mean, not job security, self security in that if you lose your job, but you know that you can sell your set of skills to another company because that's really what employment is. Right. That's what getting hired is. You will never, not never, but you will be much less afraid of being out of work.

So, a good example is like right now, a bunch of tech, like a bunch of tech layoffs are going on, everybody's freaking out, but the thing is if you know how to market and sell your skillset to another company, you don't really have to worry about that. Cuz if you lose your job, you'll just go, you'll just go sell your skills, to a different employer.

Ryan: Yep. 

Hannah: And that makes you much less afraid.

Ryan: Right? And obviously you can use the sales technique. In negotiations and things like that, right. Employment, but you can also use it in personal disputes. Right. You kind of touched on that earlier. You can use that in, if you're meeting somebody for the first time and you need something from, you know, quote, unquote, need something from them, you know, kind of using it to persuade them, to help you out.

Right. And it's not disingenuous. You just. You're trying to convince them. Yeah. 

Hannah: And it's like the same example I use of the restaurant of trying to sell a restaurant to a group of friends. It's a good restaurant. You want 'em to go and you have to be able to sell the benefit or the quality of the restaurant to this group of people to get everybody to go, oh yeah, let's go.

 You're trying to like, Hey, this is a good place we should go. And it just helps to have these sort of skills in life. 

Ryan: Yeah, definitely. And so that's pretty much it for this week, guys. Thank you so much for listening. You know we are super passionate about this, Hannah and I mean, sales, as you can already tell, and we've talked about it a few times, but we never really got this in depth with it, about how it changed our lives.

It really did change our lives. And we think that it can change ours too. We think that it can change everybody's yeah. And if you guys like this podcast and you guys wanna support it, the best way that you guys can do that is by leaving a review anywhere you get your podcasts, and an honest review would be awesome.

If you guys need any links to the things that we talked about, you can visit our website degreefree.co/podcast, and it'll pop right off. 

Hannah: And then if you wanna get a newsletter from Ryan and I, which of course you do, you can run on over to degreefree.co/newsletter to get our degree free weekly newsletter.

Ryan: Yep. And I think that's it until next time guys. Aloha.