I Am a Terrible Salesman

Back in my college days, I needed to get a summer job. So, between my freshman and sophomore year I became a Cutco knife salesman. The sales strategy for Cutco was exclusively door-to-door. The salesman (or woman) would cold call potential clients and set up a time to do a demonstration. Once the demo was over, and the knives bought (or not in my case), the salesperson would then ask for names and numbers of anyone the client knew so that the salesperson could start the process all over again.

I was terrible at this job. I knew I would be. I am not a charismatic or energetic sort of person and I am definitely not the kind of person who would try and push a sale on someone who wasn’t interested. But I felt this job might help me with my social anxiety and would help me gain confidence in the big, bad adult world. I wanted to get better in social settings by purposefully putting myself in very uncomfortable positions.

Needless to say, I did a terrible job. While I believe my main goal of training to become less socially awkward was a success in general, I sold very few knives and got even less appointments (the first time someone hung up on me, I burst into tears and felt an overwhelming surge of guilt for days). The only ones who bought my knives were my family. My grandmother was the top buyer, buying the $800 set so that I could get a $90 commission.

This is all to say, my family is my best supporter. When I self-published my books, they were the ones who bought 30 copies. When I published Gramatic!, they bought 10 boxes. I am truly grateful for this support, as I don’t think I would have the confidence to try these new things out if it wasn’t for them. Even if I never sell another book or English-based game, it all would have been a success.

There’s really no other point to this post other to say thank you to all the family members who have blindly supported me and my creative/entrepreneurial endeavors for the last 30 years. Your investment may not be particularly fruitful for you, but it means the absolute world to me.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I love you all.