Tinker Constantly

The greatest salespeople never stop improving.

And to show you what I mean, I’m going to take you back to when I was a baby in the world of sales.

When I was 18, I got a job selling stuff door-to-door. I had cigarette lighters, calculators, and a bunch of other bits and pieces.

I got one day of sales training before I was cut loose on the streets. And my sales trainer told me I had one task:

“Don’t return until you’ve sold everything in the bag” he said.   

Fast forward a few hours later...

At 2pm, I turned up at his door and he asks me “What are you doing back so early?”

I said, “I sold all my merch just like you asked.”

He was dumbfounded. I was the first to ever sell all their stuff on their first day. 

But what I hadn’t realised was that he was joking! He never expected me to sell out. 

So, was I a sales genius at 18?

NO!

Why? Because I tinkered with my opening line… until I found something that worked. Because we would speak to hundreds of people per day, I could quickly test 20 batches at a time of new openings.

For example, I’d turn up at an industrial estate and say something like: “Hey guys, I'm selling lighters at five bucks, normally 20 bucks. Interested?”

I’d see how that worked then I’d try another line at the next place I went to.

And then another.

What I didn’t know at the time was that I was split testing different “headlines”. I’d test one against the other to see which worked best. Then I’d tinker with that line, test it again, and so on.

That constant tinkering helped me to find a formula that crushed it. 

And that’s what you need to do with your ads.