Sean D. Francis

Believe in your product, believe in yourself

Posted on 08 March 2010

Recently I found myself inspired by waffles, real Belgian zucker waffles.  Do you know the difference between real Belgian zucker waffles and American waffles?  Yeast dough.  Real Belgian zucker waffles use yeast, essentially a brioche dough while Americanized waffles use baking powder.  I didn’t really find the waffles themselves to be inspiring.  Yes, they were quite tasty.  I found the man selling the waffles inspiring.  He believed, truly honestly believed, he sold the best thing in the city.  His belief was contagious.  Without his verve and vigor, these waffles probably wouldn’t have tasted as awesome as they did.

Belief creates reality.  He believed in his product.  He sold them by talking about their virtue, not demeaning the quality of others.  He sold them by attempting to get me to see the product as he saw it. He did this by giving me a free sample, by talking about the process, the ingredients, and the European ethic behind the food.

I walked away from the little shop feeling very enthusiastic about waffles.  I also walked away with a new found admiration for a quality sales person.  Everything this man sold in that little shop was the best.  The best chocolate, because it was Belgian chocolate and Belgium is the only country with chocolate purity laws. The best real Italian gelato, which was the best for a reason I can’t recall.

A couple months ago, my company told me my job would be outsourced in May and because of that, I would no longer have a position at the company.  This hiccup put me in a position of finding a new job which is very much about selling oneself.  Imagine taking that belief the waffle guy had in his product and apply it to yourself.

I’m not going to lie, I really dislike the idea that I’m going around thinking I’m the best possible person for a job when there is rational empirical evidence to the contrary.  Yet, for the absolute sake of personal sanity and maintaining some semblance of dignity, it is vital to have that belief. In life we are really only selling one product: ourselves. If we don’t believe in the product then when we try to sell it, we will sound like used car salesman.  We will sound like we are reading off a checklist written up by someone else.  We won’t understand why we are the best product available.  We will blend in with the countless others who also don’t believe they are the best product available.

We need to know our skills, know when we are awesome, and truly believe it.  Through that belief we will be able to talk about our projects, our goals, our lives with the same vigor of that waffle salesman.  Quite honestly, he made me believe that if I didn’t try his waffles I would be missing out on one of the greatest things in the city.  Isn’t that what we want from potential employers?  We want them to feel as though if they don’t at least give us a chance, give us an interview, give us the project,  they will be missing out on something terrific.  And you know what? They will be.