In my opinion, which may be unpopular around here but is informed by 12 years in business...I always hear or read from successful entrepreneurs that beginners should learn sales. But I don't really get it, how do I learn sales if I still have nothing to sell and am in the process of learning a monetizable skill? Thanks.
Sales [as a skill] isn't that important.
Great products and services are often "sold" via marketing alone. My own service, I no longer sell, and I have no interest to build a sales team. Everything is "sold" via my website. People just come and buy.
I think beginner entrepreneurs should learn how to manage innovation and build a great business. Which really means how to figure out the assumptions they're making with their business model, and then find fast way to test them in the market, so they can get market insights and refine their business model. Having a solid business model is a whole lot more important than sales.
Usually it starts with a vision. You want to see some changes in the marketplace which you think will be beneficial. From this, based on available data and educated guesses (assumptions), you form a strategy. Problem: people are getting scammed. Assumption: they want to find a way to see which business is a scam. Assumption: The ideal way to do this is to allow and encourage customers to rate all businesses in a directory and leave reviews. Assumption: Customers will care enough to leave reviews. And so on. All those assumptions inform your strategy.
You need to test them, so that you can see which are real and which are not. If all your assumptions are correct, then you just need to execute well. On the other hand, if your assumptions are faulty, then the best execution won't get you anywhere.
Focusing on sales as a skill, as far as I'm concerned is retarded. Sales is only useful if you're trying to swim upstream but why would you be?
Focus on business model. Then positioning. Then marketing. Then sales.
I only realized this when I saw the difference that a solid business model makes. You don't even need to sell anymore. Whereas with a weak business model, you need to be an absolutely amazing sales person, and even then you may fail.
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