I’ve never thought of myself as a “sales guy” but I’ve made $88,700 from sales calls so far this year (and acquired equity in three companies as an advisor, without investing a dime).

The fact that I love sales calls is surprising enough, but I was in for another surprise: the people I’m meeting with love my sales calls, too.

Check out these real comments from real sales calls 😍

“John, this was really, really helpful to me, so I'm very grateful for it.” - Ben

“I'm curious… so why are you doing this? I’m really grateful, I'm usually not on the receiving end!” - Karen

“I told this to my assistant and then my wife… I recognize that John is making a really incredible offer here. And so

if I've turned it down, it's going to be after a lot of conversation and thought.

Chad’s comment illustrates a core way I sell, respecting people’s ability to to make an intelligent decision about whether or not to join my accelerator program (or Thrive School PRO).

Ben and Karen’s comments emphasize another core principle:  *Always Be Teaching.*

I believe every free article, social media post, or even sales calls needs to be useful to the real person receiving it (more on that below).

But still, you may be wondering… do I have to do sales calls? Can’t I just focus on building an online audience, and promoting digital products with email marketing? That scales!

True, sales calls take tedious time, there is no way around that—but when you’re building a business you should take Paul Graham’s advice to “Do things that don’t scale.”

When you do so, sales calls have multiple benefits:

1. You get to know your target customer, personally
2. You get to sell your premium flagship product
3. You get to refine your offer with live feedback

Big companies pay huge sums of money to get “Customer Research” but with sales calls you get paid to research your own customer, which will help you create relevant content and products (which, ultimately, do scale).

How to Schedule (More) Sales Calls

The first rule of sales calls is that you should never call them sales calls (a rule I’ve just violated a half dozen times).

I’ve called these “sales calls” to get your attention, but I recommend you think of these as “serve calls” instead.

• Sales calls are focused on selling a product.