Why every creative should do a stint in direct sales

I always knew that I was destined to be in a creative field. Some of my favorite memories from elementary school involved making my own version of an M.C. Escher drawing and dressing up as a character from Oklahoma! on a regular day in third grade.

So when the opportunity to start a career in advertising presented itself over fifteen years ago, I knew it was the place that I wanted to be. I dove in headfirst. I was in my early 20s at the height of multicultural advertising in New York City. I found a community of people I admired; they were driven and quirky and funny and smart. We would go to Sigur Ros concerts in Radio City Music Hall together and celebrate Three Kings Day with a Rosca de Reyes at the office. It was awesome. I continued sharpening my copywriter skills as the years rolled on and eventually jumped over to the client side. Where again, I was lucky to find an inspiring group of brilliant and talented people to work with and learn from.

But then my daughter was born. And everything changed. I decided to focus my energy on raising her and dabbled in freelance work until I decided to shift gears completely.

Maybe it was my version of a mid-life crisis, or simply the fact that I had arrived in a new city and craved community. One day, feeling mopey at my desk while my daughter napped, a friend called me about an opportunity where “I could work from home!”, “Set my own hours!”, “I could fit it into the nooks and crannies of my life!” It was flexible and sounded perfect, especially since my daughter was still toddling around, and needed full-time care.

The premise was simple. Make a list of people and reach out. Every. Single. Day. This could be a great excuse to reach out to people, I thought to myself. This will get me out of my existential funk, I continued. This is crazy, I would also think. I’m going to do it, I concluded.

Those early days of working my business, I was driven by the energy of something new. For days, and years, it became my job. I would look through my phone and social media contacts and write a list every Sunday night. Then I would methodically go through the list during the week, 5-10 names a day.

There were good days when I would talk to three or four people, and maybe make one sale. There were other days I would talk to no one. Those days were hard, and I would feel an energetic slump, but then I would work out or come up with a creative project to replenish my energy and reset my mind. The next day I would be right back at it again.

As I dive into my third year of working this business, now alongside a freelance creative career, I realize how valuable my direct sales experience has been.

1.  It forced me out of my bubble. Writing, like every creative endeavor, can be a very solitary craft. Unless you are paired up with a creative partner to complement your skillset, the typical process is: you are tasked with a project, you retreat to your introverted bubble, and come out to deliver your work by the designated timeframe. Direct sales uses exactly the opposite muscles. You have to be constantly outside of yourself, connecting with people, talking, texting, letting people know what you are doing and where they can find you. For me, direct sales was like a professional bootcamp, exercising my flabby extroverted muscles, forcing me outside of my comfort zone and teaching me the value of nurturing relationships, consistency, and follow up.

2.  It helped me acquire new skills. Here’s a story. Once upon a time, when I worked in midtown Manhattan, I decided to attend a Toastmasters meeting. At the time I was working for a big entertainment company and realized that I was getting way too worked up whenever I had to present my work (sweaty palms, heart beating out of my chest, feeling like I was going to pass out, etc) so I read about Toastmasters, a legendary public speaking organization from the 1920’s with celebrity members such as Richard Branson, Harrison Ford, and Julia Roberts. They met once a week during lunch break in a second floor room of a random office high rise just a few blocks away from where I worked. I was committed to conquering my fear of public speaking (which was born from a traumatic speech in junior high). I made it to the Toastmasters meeting, alright, but when I found out that we had to give a speech every single week, I ran out of there and never went back. After that fiasco, I knew for a fact that my fear of public speaking was an Achilles' heel that I had to conquer at some point. The opportunity came along many years later in a very unexpected way. I stood in a party room of a neighborhood restaurant in Miami before 40 people, most of them people I didn’t know very well. I had volunteered to share my story of how I had decided to embark on my entrepreneurial journey. Leading up to it, I felt some of the same familiar feelings. My heart pounded in my ears, my breathing shallowed. But, one thing was so extraordinarily different. I was prepared. I had shared my story hundreds of times before when I was pitching my business day after day. I felt ready. As I began speaking, the nerves dissolved. I put all my heart into that presentation and finished it soaring with pride. After this experience, I have jumped on every opportunity to speak to a crowd. I revel in the energy it gives me and the chance to embrace the selfless feeling of sharing my time and energy, my experience and knowledge.

3.  It has given me better context for my work. Being on the front lines of the sales cycle has given me an opportunity to look at what I do through a totally different lens. Before I started direct sales, I viewed my creative work in isolation. Now I see my creative work as a piece of the whole and how it fits into the big picture. I have a better understanding of business in general. How a product or service is developed, how it goes to market, how it becomes a part of peoples’ lives. I’ve had to learn the ins and outs of my products and services in order to talk about them with authority. I have had to think about how the value of my products and services fits with the needs of my potential customers. I have had to sharpen my customer service skills to optimize my customers' experience and give them a good reason to come back.

4.  It helped me develop my personal brand. When I first started my business, I had no idea about personal branding. I would look at colleagues admiringly who had been in the business for many years in awe of their polished self-assurance. With time, I realized that self-awareness comes from trial and error. Finding the things that resonate with you, that spark some kind of light inside, that inspire you and make you feel like you are being authentic, this is it. And based on this revelation, you begin to edit and mold your personal brand so that it comes across as an accurate depiction of your values, skills and talents.

5.  It taught me the value of an entrepreneurial mindset. What is an entrepreneurial mindset? A growth mindset, that includes grit, passion, dedication, commitment, and determination, and the agility to continuously tweak and adjust to changing circumstances as you go and grow. My direct sales business became a laboratory of sorts, a platform to experiment with different ways to connect with people, to learn what resonated with them best, to keep evolving, to keep innovating, to bring passion and enthusiasm to everything I do.