“I don’t sell.
Humans are hardwired to resist being sold to.”
— @NavalR
“I actually don’t believe in sales. If you feel like someone is selling to you, and if you feel like you’re being sold, it’s a turnoff. Humans are hardwired to resist being sold to. So I think what matters much more is credibility. Credibility is way more important than sales. If you want to be good at “sales,” then really what you want is you want to be credible.
You want people to trust you. You want to be the real estate agent that steers people away from bad deals and bad neighborhoods and bad houses, so that when the right one comes along for them, they trust you. You really have to take your ego out of it, put yourself in the other person’s shoes and figure out what they want.
And then once you’ve figured out what they want, then you can “make the sale.”
But I’m not the guy you would talk to for making the sales quota, where you have to sell like 50 pieces of software this week or this month. But what I can tell you is that the people you most want to impress in life are the ones who can see right through you.
And they will see right through your sales tactics; they will see right through your pitching them. And these people are the top of the top. So if you want to work with the people who are at the top of the top, if you want to successfully sell the biggest things that are out there, then you have to be very credible.
And to be credible, you have to be authentic. You have to tell the truth. You have to be knowledgeable. They have to be able to trust you, and that you’re not just doing what’s expedient for you—you’re thinking about the long term. You’re being honest. You understand what you’re talking about, and you can explain it simply.
Because nobody’s an expert in everything. They’re not going to come up to speed quickly enough, so you do have to figure out how to analogize it and convey it to them, and it doesn’t always work. You can’t be attached to the outcome. You can’t sell everyone on everything. I know there is a model out there that does work, where some people are incredibly aggressive.
They’re like, “Never give up. Just keep hammering. Just keep going on it. Just keep beating on it, and eventually you’ll break through.”
I’m not one of those people—I’m just lazy. I like to go where it’s easy, so if my “sale,” or if my pitch does not resonate with somebody, I move on. I move on instantly, and I just keep looking for the person whom it will resonate with.”
