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The Secret Weapon of Salespeople Every Entrepreneur Should Steal
It’s easier to become a great salesperson than you might think
I was quizzing a pre-revenue entrepreneur about customer acquisition. He was practicing his fundraising pitch with me, and he’d spent the entire time talking about his product. I wanted to know how he was going to sell it. Finally, he’d had enough of my questions.
“I’m a product guy,” he huffed. “Can’t I just tell investors I’ll hire some MBA to do the selling for me? Isn’t that what I’m raising money for, anyway? So I can hire people, I mean.”
I shook my head. “No, you can’t,” I answered. “You’re the founder. If you can’t sell your product, nobody can.”
“But I suck at talking to people,” he moaned.
“That’s your problem,” I said.
“That I suck at talking to people?” he replied. “I already know that!”
“No,” I answered. “You just told me you suck at talking to customers. But you should never be talking to customers. You should always be talking with customers.”
I’ll admit the point I was making probably seems like a tiny grammatical nitpick. Unfortunately, I encounter the problem so often from entrepreneurs that I often find myself having to highlight it…
