You should learn sales.
Depending on the corner of the internet you lurk in the most, you might believe the only way to build a company these days is to produce a hundred pieces of content every day.
It’s great advice, but it’s only part of the Build-A-Company blueprint.
The other part is sales. Interrupting people’s day with a phone call or email. Until a few weeks ago, I didn’t really want to make this part of my strategy, but spending an entire night alone in an airport convinced me otherwise.
(It’s amazing what your brain does when you’re tired and bored)
This week I finished the second of four books in my sales training personal curriculum:
Fanatical ProspectingPredictable Revenue- The Little Red Book of Sales (in progress)
- Take The Cold Out Of Cold Calling (up next)
Reading is theory, not a substitute for experience. I’m building a broad understanding of what sales looks like because I’ve never done it before. But what I’ve learned is surprising: the skill of sales is something everyone practices all the time.
If you aren’t selling a product, you’re selling your ideas, your opinions, and even yourself.
Some universal truths about sales:
- Lead with curiosity and questions. Most people love sharing their opinions.
- Your “product” is only as good as the solution it provides to the situation. For example, in a job interview your products are the skills and cultural fit you bring to a company to solve their gap. You’re only part of the equation: the rest depends on how they define the problem and want to solve it.
- Nobody likes to be sold. Everyone loves to buy. The difference lies in whether you’re there to tell them what their problems are and how to fix them or if you’re there to help them solve something, regardless of your own benefit.