I have now spent the last four weeks investing myself into a project. At times using skills I already had, and many times learning new skills. It has been one of the most productive months of my life. Even while working three different jobs and taking on a position at my church, I was able to put together a project that I am both passionate and excited about.
This post is a re-cap on the project for the entire month, but if you would like more info on the project or on what I did each week, check out these other posts: Project Outline, Week 2, Week 3.
What was my project?
The basic idea of the project was that I wanted to create a podcast talking to professionals in the sales world and I wanted to document my journey getting there. This is, of course, a summarized explanation, but it gets the idea across.
I set my goals at a difficult but achievable height. I knew I would struggle, but I also knew that I could guarantee success. If you say you’re going to do something, I believe that you should be able to back that up and that you should do whatever it takes to do it. Therefore, I’m not going to make goals that I can’t guarantee I can make happen.
This also allows room for improvisation and adding. While my project goals started simple, I was able to add ideas to it as I went and really craft it to what I felt would be most useful. I think this is especially important when doing a project on something that you don’t have much previous knowledge in. For myself, I didn’t know anything about podcasts or sales, so it was much better for me to set expectations at something impressive but not unrealistic so that as I worked on the project I could understand what could truly be done and what could not.
How did I add to my project?
I realized pretty early on that I would be able to achieve my goals for the project and that it would be challenging, but completely doable, so as I went, I kept my eyes and ears open for ideas to add to the project.
The first idea came in the very first week. I had heard several people talking about MailChimp and how they had used it in their sales position at their company and I decided to check it out. All I knew going into this was simply that MailChimp had to do with emails, I legitimately didn’t know anything else. After figuring out what MailChimp is used for, I asked one of my advisors if there was a good way to showcase that I knew how to use the program. She kindly asked me how people usually can tell you know how to do something? I realized how dumb my question now sounded. If I wanted people to know I knew how to use it, I needed to just use it.
So, after a lot of researching and tutorial videos, I figured out the best way to use MailChimp, and I created an email list for my podcast. This makes it sound easy, but I definitely struggled at first when learning how to use it. Here’s a post about that. I decided that this would start as just an update each week on who I was interviewing on the podcast and a little information about them. I figured once again that I would start simple and that I could add to it later.
Midway through the month, I heard yet another great idea that I really wanted to add to my project. I was concerned to add it at first due to how late in the game it was and how busy I already was, but I wanted this project to be the best that it could be, and if that meant I needed to stay up until 3:00 am every night making it happen, so be it!
I wrote about it in a blog post here, but long story short, I decided to cold-call 100 people by the end of the month to see if they would subscribe to my mailing list. This was ambitious as the month was already half over and I only had about three days in the next two weeks that I would have availability to call during acceptable hours of the day. In just 10 hours spread out over 3 different days, I was able to achieve my goal of cold-calling 100 people. Out of these hundred, I gained 71 subscribers.
What are my project accomplishments?
In my initial outline, I listed what my project would look like at the end of the month. Here is what I said:
“I am going to have delivered a 5-part podcast series interviewing people who work in the sales areas of their companies. Probably people who have 2-5 years of experience but I will be flexible on this. I am also going to have several blog posts on my website on the subject of sales and what I have learned through my month-long process of studying it. Bonus: Sell something and document the tactics I use to sell it.”
Here is what my project actually looks like:
I have delivered the three episodes of my podcast series that I planned to, and the next two are scheduled for release for the next two weeks. They are available on Spotify, iTunes, SoundCloud, and I will soon be adding them to YouTube. I interviewed young professionals in the sales world who have all had incredible success in their companies. I have posted on my blog every single day this month, with many of the posts directly relating to sales. Bonus: While living in the middle of nowhere, I sold 5 puppies in less than a week using tactics that I learned from my studying in sales. Here’s a post about that.
Added accomplishments:
I learned how to run a MailChimp email campaign and through publicizing and cold-calling over 100 people have gained over 100 subscribers in less than three weeks. I have sent out three email campaigns with this, and plan to use it for future podcast endeavors.
How did I do this while working 40+ hours a week?
When working on a project like this you have to make very clear what you are willing to sacrifice and what you aren’t. For myself, I knew when I agreed to the project that I wanted to make it the best I could, so I decided to take away any distractions I could. I made a rule for myself; the second I got back from work, I would work on my project. The second I got out of bed, I would work on my project. Any spare minute I had, I would work on my project.
I planned what I wanted to accomplish each day, I took social media off my phone, the stuff I had to do during the day, I did during the day. The stuff that could be done at night I stayed up as late as necessary to get done before I went to sleep.
I realized just how much can be done when you truly use every minute to be productive and actively avoid wasting time.
Have I actually learned anything?
I can honestly say that I have learned more in the past month than I ever have before in a single month. So much so that it is hard to even summarize what I have learned. Have you ever run into somebody that you haven’t seen in like 10 years? They ask what you’ve done and it’s hard to explain. Not because nothing’s changed, but because so much has changed that you don’t even know where to begin.
I knew nothing about sales at the beginning of this month, and I now feel like I have known about how sales works for the past ten years. I know enough about it to know that I will never fully understand it and as long as I am in it, I will always be learning. It is constantly changing, and there are constantly ways to be more creative.
The biggest takeaway that I have from sales this month is that sales is caring, not selling. This is why I love the idea of sales. People are my passion, and through sales, I’m not looking to suck every cent I can out of people, I’m looking to truly create value in their lives by helping to inform them about things that I may know that they don’t.
That only scratches the surface of sales and doesn’t even account for the many things that I have learned about podcasting, asking questions, connecting with others, learning how to relax, the cost of investment, learning when to say yes or no, and countless other things. I would say the best place to find out what I learned this month would be to check out my blog posts from each day this month. Every day I was learning something new and I tried my best to document it there.
So, what’s next?
Well, first off, the next two weeks will consist of continued research in sales and obviously the last two episodes of the podcast series. I also plan to put out a video of why I think everyone should learn about sales and why it’s important in everyday life.
[Update: here’s the video I said I would create]
After that, I am looking into continuing my podcast as a long-term idea. In truth, I was always planning on continuing it long-term, but I wanted to start with the short series so that I could make sure that it was both something that I could do on a weekly basis and also something that I enjoyed doing. It’s a definite yes on both, so you can expect in the next few months that I will be coming back strong with a new idea for the podcast!
This has been an incredible month, and for anyone trying to get the most out of their life, I highly encourage you to do a PDP. If you aren’t sure where to begin, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I am more than happy to help you figure out what kind of project will be most beneficial to you.
While this project is over, the things that I have learned will stick with me, and I look forward to doing another project very soon!