It’s 1:01pm and I’m sitting at my desk. My office is the original master bedroom, with a full bath and spacious walk in closet. My large oak executive desk is situated facing the center of the room, with a leather couch across with a row of windows above, and a love seat against the wall to my right with framed map of the roman empire as it was in roughly 400ad. Across the love seat is an oak armoire. Bookcases line the walls behind and on either side of me, and stacks of books are piled up like little city skyscrapers all around the perimeter and corners of the room.
I watched by son all morning while my wife worked. I was tired when we woke, but my son always managed to pull me up. I made him breakfast, we played in the yard, the garden, the mud, the sandbox. We ate grapes and strawberries and blackberries and raspberries, plucked fresh from the vine and bush.
How to make a lot of money in sales?
Assuming the compensation is a %/proportion of revenue, and revenue is currency/time, there are several factors the impact high much revenue you can make as an individual with your time:
- Time to integration of value (ie complexity of product/service)
- Time to Delivery of value (how long until you realize the full revenue of a sale)
- Recurring Revenue (consumable, subscription etc)
- Sales Cycle, ie time to identify need and decision makes
- Total Cost of solution
- Cost to support the sale (resources, marketing, prototyping etc)
Whether you are selling products, services or solutions, there is a hierarchy to business transactions:
- Peer to Peer (independent contractors)
- Business to Consumer
- Business to Business
- Market to Market
- Economy to Economy (between countries, but moreover, between alliances)
I’ve always worked in business to business sales. I believed that is where the money was. That is because I never understand M2M, and this is the role of private equity and investment banking and corporate development play, and it is the most lucrative.
Leverage is critical, because time is finite. Leverage is the ability to move a lot with a little.
If I want to make a lot of money, I need a high volume of deals with short sales cycles and quick transaction times for realizing revenue, or I need capital intensive sales.
The higher the transaction sale price, the higher the value I need be delivering for the client/customer. It needs to make them money, save them money, or save them time.
Investment bankers act as financial advisors to companies. If a company or government want to raise money for an investment, they use investment bankers issue stock, float bonds, negotiate the acquisition of a rival company, or arranging the sale of the company itself.
Private equity raises money from individuals to acquire companies that make up a portfolio of investments. They leverage industry and business knowledge to make companies more efficient or productive to achieve an ROI.
A Hedge Fund is limited partnership of investors that uses high risk methods, such as investing with borrowed money, in hopes of realizing large capital gains.
Any time there is a transaction of money between two entities, there is a fee or cost of doing business. The person brokering or responsible for the transaction is typically compensated according to the proportion of money being transacted. This broker is a sales person, but they can be called many things. The more money being transacted, the greater the compensation.
I need to learn how to increase my sales. How?
- Time to find buyers – how quickly it takes to find a buyer
- High Dollar Deals/ Expensive solutions
- Buyers with deep pockets/expensive problems.
- Fast Sales Cycle – Qualifying Need to Close
- Quick Transactions – Once agree to purchase, how long to transact
- Quick Delivery – how quickly to realize revenue/total value of order
- Recurring business – compounding
Build relationships, build trust, be consistent, be dependable, be credible, be trustworthy, be an authority.
I need to find opportunities to make money, save money, or save time. Every opportunity is framed that way.
Failure is the only way to learn. I must experiment, and have no fear. If I fear, I will not be present, not show up fully, I will be guarded. I must have no fear in trying.
Several of my best friends have started their own business, either on their own or with partners. Almost all of them. Here are a few, along with their skill:
- Home Furnishings (Marketing/Design)
- Creative Design (Artist/Illustrator/Animator/Musician/Graphic Design)
- Medical Device (Computer Engineering, Programming)
- Athletic Team/Sports Club/ Performance Coaching/ Author (NCAA Athlete)
- Investor and Financial Advisor (Finance, Family business)
- Construction (Home Building)
- Dental Practice (DDM/denist)
- Toy Design & book publishing (product designer)
Several are academics or full time scientists:
- Aging Geneticist (phd biology)
- Environmental Conservation (phd)
- Political Science (MA working on Phd)
- State Conversation Scientist (MS Biology)
The best friends that I have working in industry are few:
- Private Equity/Private Credit/BDC (Accountant)
- Brain Training App (Marketing)
- Biotech/Pharma (phd biochem scientist)
I find this very interesting.
I am part of the industry group:
- Management Consulting/Professional Services (Sales)
I would love to start my own business. No idea what I would do. What skill do I have? Sales? Is that even a skill? People? Teaching people how to sell?
I think the path to wealth is build and sell a business, then you get into the game of buying and selling businesses, which is the Market to Market level.
I want to write a book. Why? My life? Share some insight? I think the process of writing a book would be more productive for my life than publishing it, but perhaps in the process of writing I develop and become the person I was always meant to be.
I want to demonstrate to myself that I can achieve anything, and there is a formula. I am still proving to myself that I have a formula and it wasn’t just brute force and luck. After all, it must be repeatable and predictable.
I feel the final milestone in demonstrating my true self worth is achieving monetary goals, ie wealth. I don’t know if I will ever fully believe I’m exceptional unless I achieve high wealth.
Sure, overcame mental illness. When I was getting my life together I had some set a goal to travel the world and write a book and work in the field of management consulting. Along with these goals I made the promise to myself to make writing and reading an essential part of my identify and daily routine. I also promised I’d buy a Breitling watch and learn to ride a motorcycle and buy a Ducati when I hit some life milestones when was 19 just to remind myself that dreams come true. Set goal to graduate high school after dropping out. Achieved in 1 year. Set goal to enroll in 2 year college and get straight A’s and attend top university in the nation. Set a goal to experience Greek life. Achieved in 2 and 3 years. Graduate highest honors, #1 and transfer to top 14 university. Graduate with two majors and a minor. First job is $35k year. Set a goal to earn over $100k within five years. Earn $185k in 4 years. Set a goal to become professional bodybuilder/sponsored athlete: achieve in 3 years. Set goal to be fitness model/international book/magazine cover model: achieved in 6 months. Set a goal to be a professional male escort. Achieved in 1 year. Set a goal to move to California. Achieve in 4 years. Set a goal to become a manager. 2 years. Set goal to make over $250k. Achieve in 4 years. Took 16 years to achieve my goal of working within the field of management consulting. Decide I’m ready to settle down with an amazing wife and life partner and begin having a children to build a family. Achieve in 1 year and 2 years. Set goal to live in Silicon Valley with a house large enough to host extended family visits and have a lawn and pool and garden in a neighborhood close to work. 6 months. Plant an incredible garden: 4 months.
Things that I did not achieve:
Write/publish a book. Invest in real estate/buy a house. Pay off all debt. Start an emergency savings fund. Start a business. Attend an Ivy league school. Get involved in the local community/nonprofit/charity. Get involved with toastmasters. Study for the GRE/GMAT and score in the 99th percentile. Apply to MBA/attend top 14.
Some of these goals were not feasible or conflicted with other goals I was pursuing the time, or I just didn’t make them the top priority, because of fear or lack of focus and discipline and allowing distraction.
Some soft goals I achieved:
Teach myself history of fundamental mathematics and its relationship with science. Learn how computer/control systems work. Learn European history, and my family history. Explore historical basis for philosophy of mind, intelligence, cybernetics, and how it ties into Artificial Intelligence. Teach myself Data and Systems. Become an Excel master.
My current goals are similar. By 4o I want to:
- Earn $1M/year compensation
- Debt Free
- Own a $700-1M Home ($200k down payment/ 4000-6000k month)
- Complete first draft complete of a book
- Have four children
- Perform regular endurance/aerobic exercise
- Run half marathon
- Wife doesn’t need to work
- Attend graduate school/executive education?
- Become a leading expert in something/ master a skill/professional in something
By 45 I want to:
- Own a profitable business generating $20M year
- Live close to my family
- Own Dream Home/compound with acreage/land
Enough of this rambling.
It’s just after 4pm PST. I often find myself thinking thoughts that aren’t altogether brilliant but worth making concrete and tying down. I need to get in the habit of expounding on them when they begin to percolate and I’m processing. Usually some quandary I’m trying to solve or pieces I’m fitting together in hopes of creating a new paradigm shift which I can incentivize behaviors or make me more effective with pursuing decisions.
I believe simple is truth and truth is a reliable guide to performance.
Everything is a paradigm, and every psychology and the performance it produces is a consequence of a paradigm.
Stress really bogs me down. I get consumed with work and I can’t turn it off. This is why exercise is so critical.
I find myself craving novelty, an escape, an adventure. I know this stable, regular routine is good, but it makes me feel stale without clear goals and an assurance that I’m not going through the motions, that my actions are bringing me closer to my ends. I need exercise, but I can’t seem to care for it. It needs to be part of my daily motions, an effortless impulse, like eating and sleeping, both I’m not very good at.
Perhaps a schedule.
Will write more another day.