Millions of people have read my words. A small percentage of those people decide to join my email list. Out of that small percentage of people who join my email list, only a small handful of them will ever buy anything from me.
If you’re launching something like an information product, depending on the price, getting one percent of people to buy your product is a win. Depending on how you price your product, getting one percent of people to buy it can help you make a sizeable income.
Say your product is one thousand dollars and you have an email list with 10,000 people on it. If you get one hundred people to buy your product, you’ve just made $100,000.
This isn’t a post about making money, though. This is a post about an attitude you can adopt to live a more abundant life. Once you understand that it doesn’t take all that much to get what you want in life, you can begin to create an attitude that helps you get what you want by not trying to have everything.
Let me explain.
Why You Struggle to Get What You Want
Logically, you understand that not everybody is going to want what you have to offer. Not every person is going to want to buy your product. Not every person is going like you, want to be your friend, want to date you, want to do business with you, etc. Logically, you understand that it’s impossible to get one hundred percent approval from the word.
But you still want it.
Maybe you don’t literally want everyone to want what you have to offer, but you want to avoid feeling rejected. How do I know this is true, not just for you, but for me also?
If we didn’t feel this way, we’d just go about our lives ruthlessly executing on the things we want to do without worrying about which specific person is into it.
We’d put all of our business ideas out there knowing that some will work, some won’t, but eventually with the right idea people will buy. We’d attempt to meet the type of people we want in our lives. So much of our social and relationship problems come from fear of rejection.
We want to meet cool and interesting people but don’t want to “put ourselves out there.” We stay stuck in friendships and relationships we don’t want out of scarcity — we’d rather stay stuck in a crappy situation than have to go meet a bunch of new people.
We would apply for the jobs we want, even if we didn’t feel one hundred percent qualified, because why the hell not? There’s the possibility of striking gold if you continue to swing for opportunities, right?
Our need to be liked, to be wanted, to be approved of, keeps us from this mentality of constantly swinging. Is there anything you can do to completely rid yourself of this need to be liked? I’m not sure. But the one percent rule is the next best thing.
The One Percent Rule in Practice
Think about the things you want in your life. Maybe you want to start a business or do something creative. Maybe you want to improve your social skills and make more friends, get dates, or find a partner that really suits you. Perhaps you have some mission, some cause, that you need a certain number of people to accomplish.
The one percent rule can help you get all the above. Here’s the way to think about it. Regardless of your confidence level in whatever it is you’re trying to do, consider what it would take to get enough people to your cause to move the needle.
There are 7 billion people on planet earth. Let’s make it easy and say there are 3.5 billion adults. Let’s say you can get one percent of them to pay simply attention to what you’re doing. That leaves you with 35 million people. Now let’s say only one percent of them really have much interest in what you’re doing, that still leaves you with 350,000 people.
Think you could find a solid partner if you went on 350,000 dates? Probably. Think you could start an amazing business with 350,000 customers? Truth is, you can start an amazing business with 3 customers depending on what the product is.
The point of the one percent rule isn’t that you’re going to literally interact with every human being on earth. That’s impossible. But it’s just there to show you that we live in a world full of abundance. There are enough opportunities out there for you to seize a small portion of them. There are more than enough people in the world who want you have to offer.
But you have to start thinking more like someone who’s trying to market themselves instead of someone who wants and needs everyone to like them in order to make any moves in life.
The Motto You Can Use to Find Great Opportunities
There’s a simple motto that can carry you through life. You’re for some people and you’re not for others. A revolutionary concept, I know, but it’s profound when you’re able to put it into practice.
I get it. I get just as afraid as you can get at times. There’s a product I’m going to release next week. I know the vast majority of the people who see the offer will not take me up on it. I know that most people who read my work will never financially contribute to my career. But that’s ok. That’s the game.
I don’t like feeling rejected. I’ve been rejected. I once launched a product that got zero sales. The good news? At the time, I’d only shown that idea to about 1,000 people. Just wasn’t a great idea. But I knew there was an infinite number of new ones to try, so I kept trying. I knew I only needed a small handful of them to work. I knew that continuing to put myself out there would eventually pay off.
Putting yourself out there can be terrifying. I know. I know that this 1,000-word blog post isn’t just going to magically make you more confident. But I want to remind you what’s on the other side of perceived rejection. You get what you want.
You write 100 blog posts. 99 of them are duds but one goes viral and shifts the trajectory of your career. You talk to 100 different people. Your life could change by finding one person you really click with. Success in life is a lot like sales and marketing. You have to go through a lot of no’s to get to the yes’s.
I don’t know if you’ll ever quite learn to like the word no, but you come to understand over time that it won’t kill you. You can come to understand that ‘no’ often gets you closer to the answers you’re looking for. Instead of tepidly putzing around trying to figure out if people want what you have to offer, you find out faster by simply going for it. You’ ask for the sale’ when it comes to all areas of your life instead of just wishing and wondering what could’ve been.
As palpable as the fear of rejection is, deep down you know that it’s all in your head. Get out there. Get a handful of people to join your cause. That’s all you need.