Dave recounts a lesson he learned at the beginning of his career about how going the extra mile separates you from your competitors (as long as you can outrun a dog, lol!).
Video Transcription
Dave Martin (00:00):
Probably the most important lesson that I learned as a entrepreneur was, after graduating high school, I got a job going door to door selling restaurant coupon books. Door to door sales is probably one of the hardest sales you can do because you are coming to somebody's door and they're walking around inside their house, their wallet is on them, and there's a crisp $20 bill in their wallet that does not have my name on it. And somehow I need to walk up to that door and be presentable and understandable enough to get that dollar bill, that $20 bill out of their wallet, and so that's how I started my career.
(00:50):
And I'll never forget, there's so many crazy things that happened from knocking on somebody's door. They didn't answer, and so I looked in the garage and the garage door was open and I walked into the garage and I knocked on the inner door and all of a sudden I heard this like... nails and it was this dog running full speed at me. And I'm like, "Oh man." And so I turn around and start running, and it was funny because as I ran down the driveway and this dog was after me, I looked down as I'm running and it's this little cocker spaniel. And so I start laughing and then the dog stops running because it's kind of chased me out of its territory. And there was a couple other dogs stories like that. But it was funny because I was horrible at door to door sales.
(01:43):
I was horrible at it because, I mean, who is good at door to door sales to begin with? And it was so hard to get over just talking to somebody as a person and not being so scared out of my mind I'm going to say the wrong thing. And anyway, it was a big thing for me to overcome and it built so much confidence in myself. And I'll never forget this one time that I was in this really kind of mountainous residential area and I was going door to door and there was this kind of narrow asphalt road that kind of went up, and you could tell it was really just a driveway for one house that was on the very top of the hill. And I remember looking up at this thing going, "I don't want to go up there."
(02:32):
It was probably two or three o'clock in the afternoon. It was time for me to call it a day. But I just remember thinking, "I've got to persevere here. I've got to make this happen." So, I walked up that driveway and I knocked on the door and the owner of the house, he opened up the door and he goes, "You're, you're trying to sell me something? I said, "Well, I'm here from a so-and-so restaurant." He's like, "I can't believe it. You're the first person to try to sell me something to my house. You're the first person that's decided to walk up this long driveway and to even think about trying to sell me something. So, what do you have?" And the next thing I knew, I made one of the biggest sales to that person because of that perseverance.
(03:19):
And I learned that lesson almost 19 years old. And that lesson has served me well, just amazingly throughout my career. And it's something I often think back to when it looks so easy to give up. Sometimes giving up makes the most sense and just waving the white flag and moving on to something else versus having the grit to stick it out. And I'm very grateful for that lesson that I learned a long time ago.
