#167 · 75 Looms. No Results. What Gives?
I would suggest getting a sales gig as soon as possible. Put yourself in situations where you constantly have to articulate problems. The more you practice selling and communicating, the faster you’ll develop the necessary skills.
I'd focus on profit right now, then allocate some hours to earning decent money. If I were you, I'd get a job doing something marginally related to what we discuss—like a sales-based role. When I was 16, I worked at the Hammer game at the Pacific National Exhibition carnival, sitting with a microphone, yelling at passersby to play my game, and making fun of them until they played. I learned sales skills there that now directly make me money. If I'd started a business at 16, I wouldn't have had nearly as much sales exposure. Doing this for 8 hours a day over three months gave me about 420 hours of directed sales experience, which you wouldn't get if you had to generate your own opportunities as a young business owner. So I'd take the job to earn while learn; earning is less important than the learning.
Read Influence by Cialdini (or Chelini) for quick, high-ROI insights. The biggest gain comes from habit—pitch often. Use Loom videos as a hack: record 10 Looms a day, show each for 4 minutes (≈40 minutes total) to practice articulating value and learn to sell, even without live feedback.
I used to read a lot of self-help and self-development books, but I’ve found that nothing is as valuable as just getting in the arena—acting and talking about a product or service you’re selling for an extended period. That practice teaches you how to articulate and naturally picks up many of the communication skills those books try to teach through rote memorization. My number one recommendation for most people wanting to improve communication is to get a door‑to‑door sales job or incorporate door‑to‑door sales into your business. While it may not be the best for pure monetary results, it’s excellent for skill building; a month or two is enough. Going door‑to‑door daily, you’ll hit 50 to 80 doors each day, which translates to thousands of high‑stakes conversations about your offer each month—enough to resolve most communication issues.
Focus on soft skills—especially sales—because the technical side of building products or services has become trivial with drag‑and‑drop tools and AI. The real leverage comes from being able to sell and communicate value; once you can sell, you can learn the needed technical details on the fly. The barrier to entry for technical work has shrunk to about 1% of what it was a few years ago, so sales skills remain the highest‑impact, high‑income competency.