After reading the title of this post you’re probably thinking I met these 10,000 people online, nope. I literally approached over 10,000 people in person and had full blown conversations with most of them over the course of 10 months. During these 10 months, I also acquired over 1,000 phone numbers of different people I approached at colleges, coffee shops, on buses etc.
I started doing these cold approaches for my work in direct sales as I sought out potential customers and sales reps for my team, it was a fast and cheap way to get prospects. The direct sales team I was working with had a strategy of approaching students at colleges but I decided to take this to a whole other level and approached dozens of people daily and everywhere as I went through my day. Eventually, I kept doing it not just for work but also to satiate my curiosity about human beings. Here are the top 10 things I learned.
1) People Usually Won’t Judge You As Much As Your Thinking
I’ve observed in my life that most people have a deep fear of approaching strangers. This may be due to a combination of how they were raised and the primal instinct that tells us that people we don’t know or understand may be dangerous. The truth is, most people are so worried about what you think about them that they are not even paying attention to the little things you are so insecure about. Most of the time your insecurities are exaggerated by your fears, so don’t worry about what others think. Approach the stranger and speak to the crowd, they won’t eat you.
2) People Care When You Care
How often have you seen people talking to each other instead of listening? When each person is just waiting their turn to talk, that’s not a genuine conversation, it’s ego masturbation. People want to feel like you are actually interested in them and what they are talking about. Make sure you are secure in yourself and do not seek validation, instead seek to understand the other person. You will be surprised how interested they become in you when you take interest in them.
3) Connection Is Felt, Not Spoken
Ever hear the phrase “Look at what people do, not what they say.”? Well, there is certainly some truth to that because 55% of our communication is through body language, 38% is the tone of our voice and only 7% is verbal. So what we say only accounts for 7% of what we communicate. The overall connection we have with other people comes more so from a vibe than it does from spoken words. Every gesture we make with our body and face or the tones we use is what people feel. When you are communicating pay close attention to the vibe aka how the person feels. (i.e safe, comfortable, excited or awkward, uncomfortable etc.) because this will help you gauge how deeply you are connecting with them. Most people focus more on what they want to speak instead of the actual vibe of the social situation.
4) You Can Find Something In Common With Anyone
Easy ways to relate include; finding out where a person is from, where they went to school, what they do, their hobbies etc. and contrasting that to yourself or someone close to you so you find common ground aka rapport. One simple book that teaches this is How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. I highly recommend it because you can read and practice what you learn right away.
5) Stereotypes Are Often Wrong
It’s so tempting to make assumptions about someone before you even start speaking to them, we are conditioned by society to have assumptions based on the media we saw, conversations we had and ideas school taught us as kids. Stereotypes are regurgitated and even celebrated by many, some even own them proudly. The reality is stereotypes are unreliable because people are complex and surprisingly unique yet at the same relatable. Allow yourself to let go of any assumptions you have when meeting a new person, this will make you more curious and they will feel your genuine interest instead of your judgment.
6) People Want To Be Sold Solutions To Their Problems
Most people will claim that they don’t want to be sold anything yet we sell to each other every day. Everyone in life has problems and deep down inside they want someone to come into their lives and help them solve those problems, they want someone to sell them a solution figuratively in the sense they want someone to give them the solution to their problems and often they will pay for it. People don’t just pay for solutions with money, they are also sold when they follow a course of action or follow a belief prescribed by someone else. Everyone is always selling each other every day whether they realize it or not. Be aware that people don’t want you to sell them something they don’t need, they want solutions to their problems.
7) Asking The Right Questions Can Change Someone’s Life
When I would meet people, I would get their phone number to then follow up with them to share information to enroll them as a customer or partner. However, during this process, there would come times when I would meet face to face with them and ask personal questions to gauge who they are as a human being and how we can connect. I’d do this with people I was considering to recruit on my team, during this process I learned about questions I could ask to better help understand people such as “What would you do if time and money weren’t an issue?” “Where would you travel?” “Why do you do/study what you do?” etc. People are rarely asked these questions and I found they often never even ask themselves such questions so the answers are extremely enlightening to them when they are thought out. Most people never even consider what they would do if time and money were unlimited, you can be the person that asks them and enlightens them.
8) Most People Don’t Understand Themselves or Their Motives Well
Asking questions to get a deeper understanding of another person is great, but helping someone realize something new about themselves or the world around them by asking quality questions is incredible. The unfortunate reality is that most people don’t exercise deep, critical and objective thinking on a daily basis because they usually don’t have to. Life is so comfortable in this modern society where most of us choose to live in a sleepwalking lullaby as the system sings us songs of school, debt, work, retirement etc. and we all dance along. When you begin to understand that most people are asleep, you can become the person who wakes them up to other realities. I learned this as I shared the concept of leveraged income with many college students who never heard of the concept and often left the conversation with a different perspective about work, society and how they are living their life.
9) Strangers Have Everything You Want In Life
Have you ever heard someone say “If only I had (magical solution) or if only I knew (magical connection), then I could start (activity/project).”? I’ve had countless people tell me that if only they had the connections to build or expose what they want to do then they could get success. Firstly, what you are offering must not suck so if that offering is you, a product, service, idea etc. you better make sure you at least put in some effort first. From there the best step is to approach strangers (literally and figuratively) to get what you want. Want money? Strangers who may want/need your product or service will pay you if you sell to them. Want to get married? Approach the stranger you have your eye on, that may be your future wife/husband, you will never know unless you APPROACH THE STRANGER. Strangers literally have everything you want in life from jobs, friendships, opportunities, information etc. but you will not receive any of it unless you ask which leads to my last point…
10) You Can and Should Approach Strangers Regularly
Hopefully, by now you started to catch on to the fact that meeting lots of strangers has helped me learn so much that I encourage people to give it a try. Not only will it help you better understand people but it will help build your confidence and make you a uniquely bold person in a world full of timid people. When you are confident and bold, people will naturally like, respect and admire you more even if it isn’t merited. This is a fact science has found so go out and be bold, you have nothing to lose but fear. I hope you enjoyed these 10 lessons and approach the next stranger you see 🙂
P.S
I challenge you to approach the next stranger you see and tell me about the experience in the comments below. Let’s see if you take it up!