#1428 - What If Your “Success” Is Just A Number’s Game?

Okay , that means 10 people listen to each episode . So it's really , instead of a thousand , it's actually 10 people . And then , okay , out of those 10 people , how many do you actually know ? You could say , oh yeah , chris , chris listens . Or Brittany , Brittany listens . That number gets smaller .

So let's say , out of the 10 people that listen , you only know three of them . Out of the three people that listen , how many real authentic relationships have you built ? Let's just say , maybe it's one . Out of the real authentic relationships that you've built , how many of those people have you tried to offer a compelling solution to ?

Aka , coaching , speaking , engagement , whatever ? It is ? None . There you go . That's why you don't have any results . Yet . The ratio , the conversion rate , is probably going to stay the same , but when you get a million listens , it makes things a little bit easier . That would be the . A little more than a little bit .

So , yeah most of it is just a numbers game and if you have any Aversion to getting no or to getting ghosted or to getting feedback , it's very hard to play the numbers game Because our emotions are tied up in it and then it gets to our self-worth and we think if somebody says no to me , it means there's something wrong with me , and this isn't just in

sales or business . Alan's story is very much for anybody trying to better their lives . I had something coming to me .

Who here has ever listened to an entire Taylor Swift album ? Most of those hands would go down . Maybe , I don't know , 100 or 50 . Hands are up still . Okay . How many of those 50 people have ever been to a Taylor Swift concert ? Oh , okay , so only 10 of them .

And then of those 10 people , how many of them have ever been to a Taylor Swift concert in the front row ? And maybe there's only one hand still up . That's a lot of how business works . Taylor Swift has touched the lives of everyone on the planet not everyone , but a lot of people . Definitely not everyone , but billions .

I would say billions of people have at least heard a Taylor Swift song , but very few of them are ever going to meet Taylor Swift , and I think that that's a good understanding For anyone who's out there listening . You kind of have to understand when Kevin says numbers game . That's what he's talking about .

That's what he's talking about the story that I had for this that I think is very compelling is I was at the , so we spoke on Friday for three and a half hours and the next day I was sitting at lunch in the very lunch room that we spoke at the day before and I joked about how I had some empty seats . So I ate . Their food is awesome .

But the reason why we are doing this episode is because I was talking to these college students and I Spoke them the day before and we had breakout sessions . I got to know these kids pretty well , but then I really got to know them at lunch .

So it's me and one , two , three closing my eyes right now because I'm trying to remember one to my right , two , three and One father . So there's five undergrad students , college kids and myself in this table , big round table in this lunch room , and one of them .

So there's six people , seven people including me , and one of them is the father of one of the kids , and ones in robotics , ones in material science , all this stuff . They were talking about how they they couldn't get internships .

Two of them were talking about how they just couldn't get an internship and I remember thinking of myself like I mean , I'm a business owner , I would hire you guys for sure , like , and again , I wouldn't , because we like to work with people from the community and there's a lot of things behind that . But my point is is like , of course you could .

In my head , my career development brain said I , you two are brilliant . Yes , you , you're gonna get an internship , no problem if you do it right . They continue talking . I'm just observing at this stage and and they're both talking about how hard it's been to get an internship and I said , well , how many internships have you applied to ?

And he's like oh , two , three , nothing . Didn't hear anything . And in my head , and again , this is the benefit of being on both ends of the table . I remember when I was at WPI , which these kids are from , my alma mater , my school , worcester Polytechnic Institute , for those you don't know , kind of like a mini MIT . It's in New England , it's .

The point is is these kids are very sought after . It's a tech school . These are very it's a very hard school to get into . You know , I didn't know how I was gonna get in it . It was . It was a big deal . So I'm sitting there with my career development brain going you only applied to three internships . You can't expect to even get an interview .

But I remember back when I was their age and I remember I was scared not to get an internship . My first internship was at a place called Tyco safety products and I must have applied to at least 50 jobs at least . And Then my next internship , my aunt Jane was working at iRobot and she got me that one .

So as a kid you don't really know how valuable you are . You don't really know how rare you are , particularly these kids , because they're at a tech school and there's a lot of tech companies and they're in high demand . So there's no question whether or not they could get an internship , no question . But if you apply to only three , what if ?

What if the people at those jobs got a hundred applications ? And what if they're looking through the applications and then they get to the third application , they go oh , this person's perfect , let's get them on the phone . They get on the phone with them . They hire them .

It doesn't mean you're not good enough , it doesn't mean you're not valuable , it just means that you got lost in the pile of other applications . You got to apply to at least a hundred jobs before you can expect ten interviews . You got at least to ten interviews before you can expect one Job . That's the numbers game we're talking about .

But if you are afraid of rejection , to Kevin's original point , you're not gonna apply to a hundred companies . And I had that moment , listening to these two kids talk about this , where I'm like , oh my goodness , you guys actually think you're not valuable . I Could actually feel it , I could . It's like they actually think they're not good yet , good enough .

Yet I had that moment of like , oh , you actually think that your worth is not there . These companies would love to have you , that you just haven't shot enough shots to hit a three-pointer . It's very clear to me that that's common and I do remember going to career fair fairs , feeling worthless and in hindsight I'm telling you I would do anything to hire me .

You just don't know that because you've never been a business owner yet . You know , and I think that's really important to understand . So , quite frankly , some people don't get a job because they don't have a good resume and they probably aren't at a great school and maybe they don't have many skills that are relatable or not relatable but marketable .

And that is true for some people . Quite frankly , if you have no resume , no good grades , no good college , no good skills , no good interviewing skills , you're , you're in trouble and I'm not gonna sugarcoat that okay , but that was not the case with these kids .

These kids are articulate , for the most part , they're brilliant , and they just didn't shoot enough shots .

I have $100 bill here you go . So if you sell this , you get this . The only rule is you can only go to your laptop one time . So you can go to your laptop one time . You can message one person . Or you can message a thousand people , but you can't go back to your laptop .

Say you message someone and they say I'm not interested , you can't message somebody else . You only get one seat one time at your laptop . You can send as many messages as you want . I think most people would probably say well , I should send

a message to every single person my friend group , I would think . But I also know in the beginning I would say , okay , who are the three people that might actually buy this . I'm just going to send a message to them . Even in that analogy , in that example , there's not a lot of rejection because it's not that big of a deal if you don't do it .

But the reason I paint that picture is because , as humans , I think we know it's a numbers game . You know if you ask enough people , eventually you're going to get a yes eventually . But I also understand it's not that simple . If you have any fear of rejection , if you have any attachment of self-worth to the outcome , I understand .

The other thing that I think happens to us , alan , is I believe our expectations are off because there's not a lot of people that say oh no , I applied to 50 jobs before I forgot it . Or people come out and say that , but even them saying that is more the rule than it is the exception .

I had a call with a podcast client the other day and they said I can't get on any other podcasts . I said how many messages have you sent ? They're like five or 10 . I said Laura sends seven a day . It's three . Is it three a day ?

Well , we had the same exact problems at the beginning . I have no idea why nobody's signing up for this or doing this , because that's not the way it works , that's it . But everybody's saying it's the way it works . I just think they're pulling blinders over us and they're hurting our expectations . So that would be an early next level .

Nugget for me is odds are the challenges that you're having are kind of par for the course , and it's most likely because you haven't played the numbers game to your advantage yet . That's what I would say .

Every other week you're going to get an article , a blog , that is extremely , extremely focused on how we talk a lot about why on this show , what self-awareness . This is how to , how to , how to . There's eight of them so far , eight bi-weeks in a row , which is what You're looking at .

Four months , yeah , so we've been doing this for four months , haven't missed , and it's all about how to blank . In this case , it's how to become a sales star . I have this simple framework . I'll put it in the show notes .

You can download it , but it's five steps , and the first thing that I talk about in this blog is that sales is not what you think it is . If you're trying to get a job , you're trying to sell yourself to this company , to this organization , to this nonprofit , to this charity , to whatever , if I try to .

Kevin on the podcast said last week that I should go see Oppenheimer . Oppenheimer is a new movie that he thinks I'll like . He sold me on it . I'm convinced I'm going to go watch it .

That's sales . Anything you influence anyone . Sales is not the sleaze it can be . Some people are lying through their teeth , quite frankly , so it's giving sales a bad rep . Some of these people are quite frankly oh , you're going to make $100,000 this year on this court . No , you're not . No , you're not . It's all fake . It's the wonder mop . It's not real .

If you've ever been at the Big E in the US , I don't know if the Big E is global or not .

Yeah , that it's rigged in in in Instagram land and Facebook land and TikTok land . These ads , I'm telling you , some of these courses , a lot of this stuff is rigged , kevin , and I will never , ever sell you something . That is not an integrity . That is not exactly how we did it . Okay , we are leading by example in everything .

As a matter of fact , we're the ones telling you it's not going to work . You need to actually work for this to work . We're the ones that's why it's so hard to sell , because we're basically saying , in five to 10 years , this will work really well , we promise .

Other people are like you know , in three months you can make $100,000 on , you know , amazon dropshipping . No , you can't . Yeah , you can , but one in a billion people do that . You might as well go win the lottery . So I digress . The sales star is five steps . I'll go real fast with this . If you want the blog , it'll be in the show notes .

The first one is get exposure . That can be a podcast episode , that can be an Instagram post , that can be a post on your Facebook . Emilia and I found a kitten on the side of the road that we rescued . Okay , now it's Tiger Lily and it's Tucker . It's Tucker Tariel and Tiger Lily Tilly for short and we decided to keep it .

But when we were trying to rescue it and find a family to adopt , she posted on her Facebook get exposure . Okay , in a way we're trying to sell the kitten . Obviously we're not selling it because we were giving it for free , but we wanted to find a night aligned home . So glad we didn't actually , because I've fallen in love with this kitten , but anyways ,

get exposures . Number one . So she posts on her Facebook . Number two is make a meaningful connection . Someone reaches out and says I have a daughter who really has always wanted a kitten . Okay , meaningful connection . Number three . So , step one get exposure . Step two make a connection . Step three build the relationship .

She started asking them questions hey , is it a good home ? How old's your daughter ? You know , I still got to take the cat to the vet to make sure you know we're good to go , all that kind of stuff . Okay , build the relationship , build the relationship , build the relationship . Last one is offer a compelling solution .

A fourth one , I should say Kevin already mentioned this Offer a compelling solution . In this case , here's the kitten . You really should make sure that they get their vaccines and XYZ , okay . Fifth and last one is meaningful follow up . Assuming we did actually let this family adopt the kitten we didn't . We kept the kitten , glad we did .

But if we did , hypothetically , we would have followed up and said you know , to make sure that it's a good home and they're taking good care of the kitten . And Tariel was actually adopted . There was a family that got a new dog or no . Tariel and the dog of this family were not getting along . Tariel was like seven weeks old .

Tariel is my cat , my cat , my other cat , and Bianca , emilia's business partner , said hey , you want a cat , you . And now I've been talking about getting a kitten because Kevin keeps talking about how he's the ultimate cat dad and obviously you know you can't have that . So no , I'm joking .

We ended up going to see it and the point of this is that there are steps in this process . You can't expect to

shoot one shot and expect it to go in the hoop . You have to do this process and you have to play this numbers game and you have to be willing to get rejected quite a lot in order to be successful in pretty much anything . And that has rained true . That has rained true my entire life .

You know , of all the people you know , maybe there's only a hundred of them that want a kitten . And of those hundred people , how many of them are actually good homes for that kitten ? Maybe 10 . And of those 10 , maybe you only trust three of them enough to actually give the kitten away . And again , that's . You know . Just like , in college you applied up .

You know 20 colleges . Maybe you get into 10 of them . Maybe you really only want to go to two of them and then you're torn between those two . Everything in life is a numbers game . Yes , you can get better at sales . Yes , you can get better at influence .

Yes , you can get better at speaking , but at the end of the day , you have to shoot a lot of shots if you want to succeed .

If you only approach five people , you'll think you're only capable , or you're only attractive enough , or you're only a good enough partner , or you only have enough personality to date one person . But if you date 10 , or if you approach 10 people , you get two . You have two dates . And you'd say oh wow , this is going better than I expected .

Maybe If you approached 15 people , you get three dates . The problem is that when I say the conversion rate stays the same , all I'm saying is if you approach one person , you get five dates . Or sorry , if you approach five people , you get one date . It's the same , it's one to five .

So if you approach two , all right , I'm jeffing this whole thing if you approach 10 , you get two . If you approach 15 , you get three . The problem is , we think it's us . Well , I sent five messages and I only got one response . That's actually really good , yeah , it's really good . And if you sent 10 messages , you get two responses .

And if you sent 15 messages , you might get three responses and you're learning this whole time . Now , if you're not in sales and business , I promise this is everything . It's not just that , it's everything .

We were the ones who were like I don't know , that home's not good enough . You know what I mean . We were having them sell us more than the opposite . So what's one ? Because , kev , you struggled with this in the beginning of our business a lot .

Kev used to be and I'm not trying to make fun of him or anything , but Kev used to be offended when people wouldn't get back to us and it's like , dude , that's fine , that's not , that's how it works , that's totally okay . But I've been getting rejected and failing my entire life . So that was never . It never hurt my self-esteem .

It's not like I applied to 100 jobs and then was like offended that I didn't get any of them . I just kind of knew that that's how it works and maybe 100 is an exaggeration . But if I applied to 10 jobs , I don't expect to get 10 jobs . I don't even expect to get 10 responses . You know , maybe get one response .

So I think , as someone who struggled with this a lot in the beginning and you've really overcome this seriously you're like , yeah , of course you're being ghosted by many people and you're dealing with that . So , yeah , what would you say ?

On more , I have thousands of dollars sitting in a bank account

from people who gave me money and will not answer me . They are rejecting me , even though they didn't reject me in the beginning . It's still happening in different ways , so I throw that out there , just so you know you're not alone . If that happens to you , man , I don't know .

The best example I could give is it's most likely not the first conversation you have with somebody that's going to change their life . It's most likely not the first person you date that you're gonna marry . It's most likely not the first job you get that you'll stick with forever . Most likely the first house you buy is not the one you're gonna live in forever .

It's just a numbers game . It's almost never the first thing that's gonna be the forever thing . That's probably the best . I think it's different for me just because I was so broke that I had to figure this part out . I had to deal with it . I had to deal with the fact that you're gonna get no's before you get yes's , but I just had so much necessity .

Those are the people who're gonna get back to you . It's the opposite . It's the opposite of what you think . Probably that's what I would say .

And so that would be my next level nugget it's just shoot more shots and try hard not to internalize the failure , as you are a failure because you're not . It's totally normal .

We have 850,000 listens . It's just a numbers game . None of our clients have anywhere close to that level of people in their Facebook group , of course not . They don't have as many listens as we do . That's it . That's it in a nutshell . That'll be my next level nugget . Strong work . Thank you so much . You as well . Hey you as well , very important concept .

Yeah , again , this isn't about sales or business . If you're not in sales or you're not in business , this is life . This carries over to the amount of conversations you have with your child . It's a numbers game . The first one where you say , hey , smoking's bad for you .

That might not be the one , but it might be the 500th one you have when you just kept at it , I kept at it , I kept at it . If you haven't joined our private Facebook group , if you're not one of those 709 or 712 or however many people it is , we would love to have you in there . The best group in the world . I'm going to say it .

There's a lot of people that say it . I mean it when I say it . It's the best group in the world . Link will be in the show notes . You can be yourself , you can be authentic , you can be vulnerable . You don't have to worry about getting judged , because everybody in that group is into growth .

They know what it's like to be judged , because maybe they're the weird person in their group who is always talking about how to get better , staying up all night , having deep conversations , like Alan and I were in the beginning of this . You're not going to be weird in this group . You're going to fit right in , I promise .

If you resonated with a lot of that stuff , you have an organization , you have a company , you have a charity , you have a group of people , a group of individuals that you think a speech would be good for . If you are local , we could potentially do it in person . If you are not , we do virtual things . If you are intrigued , please reach out to us .

Email me , Alan at nextleveluniversecom . Say hey , I have a speaking opportunity . We also have a landing page where you can look at the different types of speeches that we give . I will also have the production team put that link in the show notes as well .

We will be talking about that tomorrow . As always , we love you , we appreciate you , grateful for each and every one of you , and at NLU we are fans , we have family . We will talk to you all tomorrow .