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My conclusion was I wouldn't read a book unless I executed everything in the book.

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Welcome to the game where we talk about how to get more customers, how to make more

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per customer, and how to keep them longer, and the many failures and lessons we have learned

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along the way. I hope you enjoy and subscribe. What's going on, everyone? Happy

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whatever day it is that you were watching this. I get messages all the time, all the time,

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and comments about what are your favorite books. Maybe in another video or podcast, I will

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do an exploratory of the books that have been most influential. But if I'm being honest,

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I didn't really start reading a ton until after I had made a relatively high amount of money,

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right? And I started reading when I had more time. So it would be backwards for me to say,

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hey, these are the things that created my success. When in reality, I feel like I started reading

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when I had the time and be like, oh, this is really interesting. And so I think that to kind of

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make this story full circle, before I even started my first business, I was definitely a seeker,

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which is like you're just looking for something, you're searching for something that's because

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you just realized that something's wrong with your life, right? And that's kind of how I felt when

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I had my consulting job, which is what I took after college. And during that time period, I read

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all the time. And I remember realizing after six or 12 months of just reading book after book,

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after book of self-help and personal development and all that kind of stuff, that my life was literally

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the same. And I remember this was kind of like a jarring moment for me because I just sat there,

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I finished a book and then I thought to myself, and it was like the happiness advantage or you know,

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whatever, right? And I was like, my life is not any different than it was before I started reading

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these books. And so I thought about it for a while. And I also realized that half the books

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contradict each other and I was like, man, this is really difficult. And so what I ended up, my

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conclusion was I wouldn't read a book unless I executed everything in the book. And so what ended

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up happening next was I became very, very selective about what books I would read because I wouldn't

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get another book until I had felt like I had executed that. And so the result of that was,

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instead of reading lots of books, I started reading a handful of books a lot of times. And so that was

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really transformational for me. I think the first book that I read a lot of times was How to

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Make Friends and Influence People. And I still think to this day, if you just did nothing else in

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business but just practiced what is in that book, you would be phenomenally successful. Like you just,

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you know what I mean? Like if you just did the things that are in that book, you'd be phenomenally

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successful. But that's kind of more like personal, you know, personal traits and character traits

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and whatnot, which I think are very important for, you know, growing, developing. But in terms of

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skills, right? And I would say the number one, you know, number one and number two things that I get

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asked about are like, Hey, how did you develop your skill of marketing and then how did you develop

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your skills sales? And truth be told, I never did a single sales training. I never read a single

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sales book before I started selling. And so that's, I wish I had like a really sexy answer for you,

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but I don't. I just started selling. And I didn't even know that what I was doing was selling.

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I was just like, how do I get people to sign up for my gym and give me money? Like I didn't even

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know that term was sales at the time. I was just like, I have to get them to give me money.

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And so I think a lot of people spend way too much time in the like deliberation stage and like

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they're trying to, they're, you spend all your effort in the, I would say like productive

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procrastination space of just like thinking you're getting better, but you would get so much

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better just doing it, right? And so only like, and people now respect what I have to say about

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sales because I've sold so much, not because of how many books I've read on sales, right? And so

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I think that once I was considered very good at sales, I had, you know, I was managing multiple

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sales teams and we were doing, you know, a few hundred thousand dollars a month. That is the first

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time I bought a sales product. Like think about that. And I went through it and I was like, oh,

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this is good stuff. You know, like there's, there's stuff in here that way we can use. Like neat,

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but like, I don't think it fundamentally changed how good I was at selling. And I think that,

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that's because so much of selling is about conviction. It's about how much you believe in the

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product more so than like the, the judo chops, right? So how much you care about the prospect and

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how much you care about the, the product, and convince the product to help them? Because if you

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truly talk from a space of genuine care, like genuine care about a prospect, you won't convince

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them to do something that they shouldn't do. And if you genuinely believe that your product or

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service is going to help people, then making the sales very easy because it's like, I really care

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about you and I really know that this product works. And so let me just like help you connect these

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two dots. And so that's like ultimately, like that is what selling is and should be. The problem

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is most people don't believe in their product and they don't care about their prospects, right?

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And so because of that, they come into all this cognitive dissonance, meaning like they believe

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themselves to be good people, but at the same time, they need to make money. And then those two

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things become at odds and that becomes really difficult to sell because now you're, you're faced with

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a more obligation to like your family, you know, to try and provide. And then against yourself to be

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ethical, right? And that becomes really hard for people. And that's why a lot of sales guys get

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burned out when they find out more about whatever they're selling.

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Hey, Mosin Asian, quick break just to let you know that we've been starting to post on

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LinkedIn and want to connect with you. All right. So send me a connection request and

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note letting me know that you listen to the show and I will accept it. There's anyone you think

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that we should be connected with, tag them in one of my or Layless posts. And I will give you all

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the love of the world. All right. So let's get back to the show.

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And so that's why a lot of times sales guys will start start out hot and then crash just because

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they find out that what they were selling with the what they were sold to sell is actually not

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what it really is cracked up to be. And then once they find that out, then all of a sudden,

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that's why in my belief, there's way more churn in sales people than would otherwise be

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necessary if they were all selling something they believed in, right? So back to the main point,

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which is, what do I do if I don't like if I have no way of, you know, practicing? Well,

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I mean, honestly, when I when I want to do something, what I do is I buy a course about how to do

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something and then I follow the course and do it. So if I wanted to make a webinar,

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then I bought a course on making a webinar and then I followed the course to make the webinar.

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And so I learned the skill while I was going through the course, I don't think there's a lot of

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productive time and usage in learning stuff for the sake of learning, like it's like, and I don't

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even, I would even make the argument that you don't even truly learn it until you've applied it.

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And so like, how do you know if you read six books on sales and they have different strategies,

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which one is, is the right one because you've never tested it in the battlefield, right? It doesn't

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make any sense. And so like the same thing with marketing, I never, I never bought a copyrighting

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course. I never bought any courses on how to build landing pages. I never bought any courses on how

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to run ads. The only thing I did was I spent, I spent money one on one to get someone to train me

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literally how to click to run ads for my gym. But I learned a little bit, I learned enough on my own.

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And so that's the thing is like, I think there's definitely a space for one-on-training.

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I think the biggest gains I've made have been from investing in people who are above me to

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break my beliefs about what was possible. Because the people who are above you most of times are not

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going to like, they're not going to hold your hand and teach you how to write copy. This is not

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going to happen. You know what I mean? Like they might edit, you know, copy you have if you have

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like a one-on-relationship something like that. But for the most part, like it's going to be up to you

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to go acquire those skills and most of the time acquiring those skills comes from doing them,

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which means you're going to suck for a while. And I think just most people aren't willing to

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try because they think that if they are perfect, they'll somehow not fail the first time,

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which is stupid because even when you're really good, you're going to fail. So it's just people

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like procrastinating and reading books about something that they haven't done is a productive way

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of feeling accomplished without actually doing anything. And so I say all this to say, for the many

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people who ask me, what are my favorite books on sales and marketing? My favorite book on sales is

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to get out there and start selling, right? Because if you start selling and then read a book on sales,

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it will make far more sense to you than trying to read a book on sales before you start selling.

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Because you won't even know what they're talking about, right? Same thing with marketing, right? Like if

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if you want to go and learn about marketing, the best thing to do is start, you know, learn how to

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run an ad. You run an ad to a learning page and then start getting some people who give their

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contact information and then pick up the phone and call them. Like you know what I mean? And the

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easiest thing to do in my opinion is the advice that I got from Ezra Firestone years ago,

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which is give yourself a slash fund, right? Give yourself a learning budget, which is how much

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am I willing to quote below this month on failure so I can learn the skills faster? And whatever that

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percentages might be 10% of what you make every month, maybe 5% or might be 25%. It just depends on

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who you are and how stable your income is. But if you just say I'm willing to give $500 a month

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to learning the skill, then you don't have this like emotional attachment to whether or not you

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crush it your first time because you're seeing this $500 month investment is truly that

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an investment in your education, your investment in trial and error rather than, uh, you know, like

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I bought this course recuperating. I'm not a millionaire. What's wrong? Right? When in reality,

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you just have to get out there and start doing it. So um, anyway, that's my that is my two cents.

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I made most of my money before I started reading a lot of books. I would say like seriously,

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I read maybe 30 books before we, you know, we're decadent millionaires, you know what I mean? Um,

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and so I wish I had something better for you, but I focus most of my time on doing an applying.

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And when I start applying, then I will go read for specific solutions to a bottleneck that I have

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rather than trying to learn in a morphous topic by reading words from multiple books and trying to

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get perspectives, different angles on problems I've never even encountered yet. Right? I think it's

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much better to encounter the problems, then start seeking the solutions and trying to cover every

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solution to every problem before you even start the race. So anyways, hopefully found the valuable,

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hope that made sense. Lots of love keeping you awesome. And I'll catch you guys soon. Bye!