I’m sitting in traffic right now, recording this into a voice note on my phone.
This has become my new routine lately. On a slow, traffic-ky commute home, I fire up a voice note and just dump out whatever’s on my mind. I try not to think too hard, just express whatever I’m feeling or what's on my mind. Then, I feed the voice note into an AI to get the transcript, polish it up a bit, and publish it to my blog. I’ve been really enjoying this flow.
What I’m thinking about today is the importance of learning how to sell. I actually started my career in sales right out of college. After spending a few months trying to find a job and working on a farm down in Maryland, I eventually landed my first "real world” job working for a software company called HubSpot. My job was as a Business Development Representative, which is essentially an entry-level sales position. And to be honest, I hated it.
I did give it a real shot. I put my head down and committed to it and learned the job. I learned how to make cold calls and how to overcome that fear of calling someone and trying to sell them something. I went at it, and I learned a lot, learned the foundations of how to sell. I even had some success. I was the number one salesperson for a couple of months at a time, helped pull in some sizable deals, and made the company some good money, setting up good deals for the account executives.
But I eventually grew to really dislike the work and the job. After about a year, I quit. I left the company and went to do something else that wasn’t sales. I actually ended up getting back into sales a little bit later, but then, once again, I left sales and pursued something different.
So, I really didn't like it. It might have been partially due to the churn-and-burn environment I was in at that first job. It was pretty ruthless and very competitive, with different BDRs kind of going against each other, using whatever tactics they could to get ahead and hit their numbers. Those who didn't were on the chopping block.
It may also have been due to the fact that I’m more of an ambivert, a mix of extrovert and introvert. Being on the phone all day, "dialing for dollars," cold-calling 50 to 100 people a day, ultimately isn't the right gig for me. Something with more balance between introverted and extroverted activities is better for me. So, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth from my initial foray into sales in my early career.
It’s been a long time since then, over 10 years, and I’ve come completely full circle when it comes to selling and sales. I don't want to do it as my full-time job or career. I’m definitely not cut out to be a full-time salesperson or an account executive. My dad, on the other hand, is a true salesman. He’s been in sales his whole career and is a thoroughbred salesman.
That’s not me, but through learning more about sales, through my dad and through doing my own selling since starting my own businesses, starting a freelance business, and co-founding a business with a good friend and selling products, I’ve grown to appreciate and understand the importance of knowing how to sell, the art of selling, and its significance. I think it’s something everyone should know how to do. It’s one of those skills that is never going to go away, despite technological developments, AI, changing markets, or changing socio-economic and geopolitical tides.
Knowing how to sell, how to sell yourself, how to sell your services, how to sell products, how to influence people, and how to tell a story (because that’s a big part of selling, storytelling) is all super important. It’s a skill that I’m going to continue to try to develop and hone myself.
Just one example of some selling I’ve been doing and working on recently is that I’ve been exploring different product ideas and doing some initial validation to see what might be valuable to pursue. One of those ideas is a software product in the disc golf industry. I’ve reached out to a couple of different disc golf courses in my area and have been communicating with some of the managers and owners of these courses.
I’ve been having a really great time emailing back and forth and hopping on calls with these folks. Ultimately, I’m trying to learn more about their business, understand their operations, how they’re running things, what tools they’re using, and particularly what challenges they’re currently experiencing or what their goals are. It’s been a lot of fun going through that exploration process and reaching out and communicating with people.
I’m planning on continuing to do that. I’m going to try to reach out to maybe 10 or 20 different disc golf courses and really explore my product idea to see if it has some validity and is worth pursuing. Or perhaps I’ll discover something different altogether that will lead me down a different path that could have potential.
I’m interested in trying to help some of these courses. I might also pitch my freelance services to them and offer help with their websites, design, marketing, and blogging.
At the end of the day, it's important to learn how to sell. It's important for everybody to develop these skills. They will help you.