This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Welcome and happy Boxing Day. Like to say happy Boxing Day to everybody out there. It is the 26th of December, episode 2186. If you're not familiar with Boxing Day, it is the day historically when cats have spent most of the time jumping into boxes. They often jump into boxes throughout the year, of course, but Boxing Day is special because all these boxes have accumulated during the holidays, get all kinds of gift boxes, toy boxes, et cetera.
And sometimes people would take the boxes to the recycling bin and discover that someone wasn't very happy about that. Some cat who had spent his time or her time, their time, jumping into the box was like, "Hey, this is my box." Thus, we have the holiday known as Boxing Day. So as I began today, greetings and best wishes to all of the cats of the world, especially those listening to Side Hustle School. And today's episode is part of a feature we've been doing all year called Your First Thousand Dollars. And as you might surmise from the title, it's all about how someone made their first thousand dollars.
How in fact did they get to that point? How did they get going? And today's is really interesting. I recently read a fascinating article in The New Yorker about the world of door-to-door sales, which is still a thing. Like personally, I'm amazed that this is still a thing.
Like I don't even answer my phone if I don't know who's calling, let alone the door. So I can't imagine a universe in which a stranger would knock on my door to sell me something and I'd end up buying. And maybe you think the same thing, but this universe does in fact exist. There are a lot of salesmen, there are usually men out there doing door-to-door sales. And for the right products, it is surprisingly lucrative.
That's what this whole article was about. To do it well, of course, you have to be really good at sales. You also have to put up with a lot of rejection from people like me who are just kind of opposed to the whole idea. Anyway, I'm glad I read that article before I received today's first thousand dollar submission from Robert. And Robert is in fact a real life door-to-door salesman.
Otherwise, I would have thought, is this true? Is that still a profitable field for anyone? But now I know it is in fact true and also that Robert can end up doing much better if he continues. So what about his first thousand dollars and how did he make that happen? What did it feel like and what did he learn?
Let's hear it from Robert. [Music]
This is Robert reporting in for my "Science Hustle" story. Here it is. I started doing door-to-door sales, which to a lot of people sounds crazy. But long story short, I had a buddy get into it and he swore that it was lucrative.
He was selling alarm systems and in his second month, he earned $10,000. $10,000? I was amazed. Some guys he knew were making even more. I got in with my friend's security system brand and they gave me two weeks of training.
Then they set me loose in the suburbs and I'll be honest, I was terrified. One of the biggest challenges in this field is dealing with rejection. A lot of the training I did was focused on this as it's statistically the number one reason why most salespeople quit. Still, even though I'd role-played it a lot, nothing prepared me for the sheer feeling of standing on doorsteps, knocking, and then almost immediately experiencing rejection over and over. The conversion rate in this field is really low.
Sometimes it's an average of one sale for every 200 doors knocked, which is a lot of rejection. That number also includes people who don't answer the door, but the point is, you're not going to be moving a ton of product doing this. So why do it? Because the commissions can be huge. In the alarm industry, commission is typically $500 to $1,200 for a single sale.
Just think about it. You could spend two full days knocking on doors, being told no over and over, but then at the end of that second day, you make $1,000. Over time, if you can produce the right numbers, it all works out. So, as for my first $1,000, fortunately, I didn't have to be rejected 200 times. I got lucky, and on my 42nd attempt, someone actually said they were in the market for a security system.
Amazing. I told them we had technicians in the area and could offer a discount if they signed up today, which is technically true, but also a technique they taught us in the training. I was sweating that they'd back out, but they saw it through, and in the end, I earned a bit over $1,000 for my commission. Now I'm out knocking on doors every day. This isn't a field for everyone, and probably not even most people, but if your persistence can keep getting up after being knocked down, maybe you should look into it.
Just don't come to my area, please. I need all the customers I can get. All right, thanks a lot, Robert. Thanks, Robert, for telling us about your first $1,000. Listeners, I hope you found it interesting, and by the way, if you wanna read that article I mentioned, that article that's all about the world of door-to-door sales, it's called Sam Taggart's Hard Sell, and it's in The New Yorker, so if you just Google that, Sam Taggart's Hard Sell New Yorker, I'm sure you'll find it.
If you've got a question or an update for us about your hustle, sidehustleschool.com/questions. Otherwise, thank you for joining me today. Today's notes, sidehustleschool.com/2186, and once again, happy Boxing Day. Have fun over there. I hope you'll join me again tomorrow.
This is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. [Music]
From The Onward Project.
