The other day I had a conversation w/ Noah Kagan about an opportunity. He passed. He's obviously trying to figure out what he wants to do. Suffice to say, Noah doesn't want to do sales on this project with me. I could guess why or make a broader statement about what he wants or is willing to do, but it wouldn't be fair to Noah to blog it. I thought he'd be good at it, though. So, I was a bit surprised that he wasn't interested.
Tim Grahl wrote a post the other day about his goals and how he realized that if he wanted to achieve his goals, he better embrace that he must first be a successful sales person. In Tim's next post, he ponders what determines one's priorities and whether liking what we do should be high on the list. (I hope he's prepared to do what needs to be done, to do what he wants to do.)
I had a meeting with Seth Goldstein in Boston yesterday. One of the first questions he asked me was, "What have you learned about yourself in the last year? What do you really like doing?"
My answer was from the gut and not very well thought out. I said that I like being a business owner. I said, I want to be a business owner; run a company. I also said that to be a business owner, I realize that I have to do sales. Then, only 80% believing it myself, I said, "I like doing sales".
Seth knows that I most enjoy talking to people, evangelizing stuff I believe in, getting thoughts out there so others respond. In other words, marketing in a web geek 1-on-1 salesy kinda way.
I took a sales assessment the other day. It told me that I liked sales. As the maker of the test knows, It's right. I made the biggest sale to date in the history of our business today. It was actually one of 3 size-able sales this week. Each time, I got pretty excited. When I make a sale, that's when I get most excited about what we are doing. Not only is it affirmation that we are doing something right, but its affirmation that we solve people's problems and provide an ROI to our customers. Even better, as of late, we generate a profit on our activities too. (It's priced right.) So, the sales make the whole venture viable. And it makes all the hard work, guessing and checking, financial and personal sacrifice worthwhile. How could I not like sales?
But, last night, I thought about Seth's question a lot more. And I convinced myself last night that the true answer to the question is that I like "marketing activities" the best. I am not talking about what most creative agencies call "marketing". I am talking about the process of discovery with others. The process of co-creation. Creating things with other people. I like exploring possibilities, gathering feedback, trying something out, seeing if it'll fly, incorporating feedback into product design, and doing it all over again with another iterative or ingeniously different idea. This is the kind of ongoing non stop marketing that creates a sale-able product. Eventually.
So after thinking about it after two caffeine-laced iced teas tonight, that's the part of our business that we did for the first 3 years. In the last year, it's been about figuring out what makes money. In the last 6 months, it's been about knowing that, and making it happen. It's a different stage of a business. And now that I've processed all of this, I must say that I like both processes: marketing and sales. And I couldn't imagine doing one without the other.
I like marketing when it is about the journey of discovering what works. And I like sales because it's about putting the discovery to good use to solve people's problems. And making money doing it. If I can maintain a healthy balance of doing both, I am confident I'll like what I am doing. But more importantly, we'll be successful. And I certainly like that.
What do you like doing?
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