My experience is, people who are good enough at sales to turn nothing into major success, such as the subject of this story, aren't taught. They're natural. They've been hustlers since they learned to talk. So you can't just apply what they did if you aren't the same way.
I completely disagree. I've learned a lot from natural salesmen and marketers, and have improved on both fronts due to learning from their battlefield stories.
I don't mean you can't become a better salesman through learning. I'm saying you can't learn to be the kind of hustler who takes an idea you can't even personally execute and turn it into a million dollar salary in two years. That takes natural ability. The article frames it as if anyone can do it
Which I think is okay. The world needs less people who sell and more people who make.
I don't think the article makes the case that anyone can do it.
I follow Jame's blog and he definitely doesn't say anyone can do it. His own life story is an example of this.
One message that he does try to say is the simple act of hustling.
Just do it is so cliched but why can't we take baby steps? Why not go out and spend the next 3-6 months validating a business idea by talking to people, potential customers, etc. Or maybe spend 3-6 months really getting in-depth understanding of a niche and seeing if there are any gaps that technology can help?
This advice is for myself but I think its quite relevant. For me, I have the tendency to spend time just thinking through an idea without spending any real effort to do a litmus test for it. I have to take a more realistic approach which is to have mini-failures that don't cost too much in terms of time and money and hopefully one of them will click. If this means going through 5-6 iterations within a span of 5-6 years until I "make it" then so be it. I'm not looking to be the next anything. To me hustling is going out there and putting myself in front of people that can help shape the idea. It is not sitting in front of my computer and just building an MVP since I'm not looking to build a business based on eyeballs but something that provides more direct value.
Anyway, I would suggest a more relevant article that James wrote is the following:
