Malcom Gladwell, in his book, “Outliers,” asserted that in order to gain “master” or “outlier” status… in anything… a person has to amass at least 10,000 hours practicing their craft.

Well, I have my 10,000 hours of prospecting, and, while I'm freakishly good at it, I can say with all my heart, that “I hate prospecting.”

It wasn't always this way. For many years, I just considered it a necessary part of my job. As I moved up the ladder of my career, it was critical for my skills to develop to the next level so that I could continue to provide value to my customers and the company I worked for.

Then, after I transitioned into the Direct Sales industry, and became an entrepreneur, it was even more crucial to my success to be the best at prospecting that I could be.

After all, that's how I made my money, right?

I studied with master prospectors. I spent 4-5 hours a day for over ten years honing my craft. I had the honor of coaching tens of thousands of individuals on their prospecting skills.

Then, one day, I realized that I was miserable. I hated picking up the phone, and most of all, I HATED PROSPECTING. Even worse, I had begun to hate the people that were expecting my calls! I knew that I never, ever wanted to pick up the phone again.

Even worse, I realized that while I was great at it, most people, even my students, were awful. While I did my best to train people to do what I was able to do, there were two HUGE issues that crushed my students ability to succeed:

1. Almost no one enjoys picking up the phone to talk to someone they don't know. Overcoming “phone fear” was ridiculously difficult to cure.
2. Even when one of my students overcame their fear, the ramp up time to excellence was just too long for anyone to really succeed.
3. Most people and businesses have difficulty generating enough people to talk to about their products and services that success takes a very long time and most people give up.

So, what do you do, when your best skill, one you've attained “outlier” status with, is suddenly the very last thing you want to do?

What I did was transfer my skills to the online marketing world. While I almost never pick up the phone to “prospect” anymore, the communication skills and work ethic that took me to “outlier” status, work in my business through:

1. Writing blog posts, like this
2. Communicating to my prospects through email and video
3. Inspiring my partners to grow their business
4. My ability to clearly train my affiliates on how to maket their businesses and make more sales

If you are looking for a way to quit saying “I hate prospecting,” and work with experienced professionals that can help you build a business online, Make sure to click on one of the links on the right hand side of this page.

You'll never have to say, “I hate prospecting” again! 😉