Are You Wired to be Excited Running a 1-Person Business? Here’s What I Know.
Signs of future success
Are you excited to run your own business?
Does it excite you to bring your ideas to market, to sell your products, and to have the stripe account buzzing with income notifications all day, all night?
Let me make a declaration.
I used to think that everyone does.
It is a mistake.
My mistake.
I’m Wired to Be Excited With Sales
I [just] freaking love this sh!t.
Yes. I do. Really.
I enjoy,
- Hitting the streets,
- Meeting people I never knew,
- Pitching products and services,
- Visiting people where they work,
- Getting engaged in commercial discussions,
- Inking that contract with their signatures,
- Keeping them as clients forever.
Yes. I enjoy working in sales. It suits my way of thinking in life. Grant Cardone sums it up succinctly.
Sell or be sold.
That is so well said.
Of course, there’s more. We are sold to all the time. It is easy to be a consumer.
All we do is pull out cash from our wallets or credit cards on our phones to buy something. That’s it.
Selling something?
Man. You get sh!t on your face.
- I have no money — That’s a lie.
- I have no budget — That’s another big one.
- I don’t need your product — My fault. I did not qualify this person properly.
- I want a 70% discount — Goodbye!
- I want it free — GOODBYE!!
We learn a lot about our customers in sales. Human psychology dominates buying behavior. That is why sellers must deal with lies, patronizing comments, condescending remarks, and occasional genuine purchase difficulties.
It is a great game.
And I thought everyone loved this game.
I was wrong.
“I’m Happy People Liked My Stuff.”
Have you heard such statements before?
I have.
A gazillion times.
And this is the funny thing. These folks are happy when other people like their work or products. But it never crossed their mind to make some money out of it.
Blows my mind.
Here’s one recent story.
It’s Halloween. Everyone in my friend’s department decided, collectively, to decorate their office with Halloween items. The theme? Orange and black.
And everyone is to tap on their creative juices to produce handicrafts for that day.
My friend worked all weekend (the one before Halloween) to craft Oreo spiders.
It was very well received. In fact, it was the only item snapped up by everyone in the department. My friend was pleased.
But it never crossed her mind that she could sell handicrafts. Never. And she dissed that idea when I brought it up.
Her: “No, no, I am just glad people like my things. But I don’t think people will buy them.”
Me: “How would you know? You have not tried.”
Her: “I just know.”
I know this conversation is going nowhere. Hence, I did not press on.
That said, her Oreo spiders do taste good…
Next, You Enjoy Working on Marketing Without an Intent to Convert.
This one is baffling.
I mean it. Like why?
Every entrepreneur I know promotes their work, business, ideas, and values they bring to the marketplace. Yes. Marketing is critical in growing our business. No qualms about that.
But there is no point working on marketing for the sake of marketing.
Allow me to give you an analogy.
There is no point in spending money to produce goods, to produce goods. Or E-books. Or free-for-all newsletters until perpetuity.
Why are we doing this? I don’t know. It makes zero sense.
Doesn’t it take time to produce our work?
Don’t we want to be rewarded for it?
I think the answer is yes. No one person in their sane mind wants to do free work f-o-r-e-v-e-r. No one. Maybe we will take a stab now because we are inexperienced. With time, we start charging.
This brings me back to my original point.
- Too many people overpromote themselves online and on social media.
- The same people underpromote their work, business, products, and services online and on social media.
They think [rightly or wrongly] that building a good brand name for themselves leads to easy sales.
Firstly, I am not against building a strong brand name with our personal profiles. Or name. It does work. Taylor Swift proved it in 2023.
But.
- The people out there must know what we do.
- They must know the business we are in.
- They must know what we sell.
Otherwise, what will we get from our endless self-promotion and paid ads?
Just to be clear.
I am not saying that marketing is a waste of time and money. No. What I am saying is this.
Marketing, online or off, supports sales.
And sales brings business growth.
Our business growth.
There is [really] no reason to pump out endless content that brings in $0 today, tomorrow, the next day, or until we biologically expire.
I know I’m being practical here.
But we do need sales.
We need income to keep our lives going.
Don’t we?
The Close
Not everyone is wired to be excited about running their own business.
That’s okay. The world consists of many different types of people, to begin with.
But if you are genuinely interested in making that jump, then,
- You must be comfortable turning well-received freebies into items for sale,
- You must go beyond marketing and venture into sales,
- You must be happy when money rolls in.
You must.
Otherwise, you will struggle to grow your business.
Take time to chew on it, pals and gals.
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Oh, oh, you can buy me a cup of black too! Thank you!