How did you learn to sell?

Piyush Santwani
6 replies
"Learn to build. Learn to sell. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable." As a Product maker, what helped you discover and build the (for lack of a better word) salesman/saleswoman in you?

Replies

Paul Nica
I was a junior sales representative for a Microsoft partner and I became really confident in my skills after that experience. Doing that for a few months has impacted my sales skills a ton
Xavier Coiffard
By doing it! Build a small product (timebox the dev time to a few weeks max), stop the product development, and try to sell it. Again, timebox your efforts, and try to make a few sales. You will learn fast what works, what resources you need, what acquisition channel is the best, etc… You can read thousands of books about how to sell, at the end of the day you need to do it to really learn!
Dragos Bulugean
Just do it, that's my opinion. Reading some relevant books can also boost your selling skills, but the best way to learn is by doing it. You might suck at first, but the more you do it and improve, the better you will get. Good luck!
Raunaq Vaisoha
If the job-to-be-done for the customer is well understood during product development, then I’ve found that the product sells itself. Your job is just to look at the world through the customer’s eyes when building your messaging. For instance, I love this line from the book Product Led Growth by Wes Bush (Chapter 8). “Often, it’s easy to think that we sell products based on the functional outcome they accomplish. Businesses need live-chat software, right? No. Businesses do not need live-chat software. But, businesses do need a new and better way to acquire customers. The difference is that we’re selling an outcome.”
Tatiana Kukova, PhD
@raunaqvaisoha I can't agree with you more! We are selling the result. I place a great focus on the product but have a customer in mind. Always.