Sales get a bad rap, but I love it.

I think it's the most important skill you can develop.

Unlike being a star basketball player, sales can be learned by anyone.

Some people are born with more sales talent. But anyone can become world-class through learning and practice.

What is sales?

Sales is the ability to understand what a person needs and to meet their needs through communication.

Good sales will help you with every part of your life including:

• building a great team
• finding a love partner
• asking for a raise
• fundraising for a business or fund

Over the coming months I'll share some of my favorite resources that helped me learn sales

One of my favorite books on this topic is Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins. It was published in 1923 and has sold over 8 million copies to date.

The book is geared towards advertisers but as you read it I encourage you to think of how it applies to your life and business.

My favorite learnings from the book:

Spend 90% of your time on the headline

Your goal as an advertiser is to compel as many people as possible to read your advertisement.

Imagine someone reading a newspaper or magazine. The reader will not read each article. They will peruse the paper until they find sections they are interested in. Then they will decide on whether to dive in or not.

The more relevant people you can get to stop on your ad, the more likely you will have an opportunity to sell them.

(this applies to writing great emails too)

Include Reminders

Remember your reader is busy and will quickly forget your ad.

Give them a reason to remember. A coupon cut-out or something they can return to later. Today, an email address or phone number is a good way to follow up with your customer.

On the length of your ad

Some people will tell you to keep your ads short and sweet.

However, the authors offers a couple stories that disagree with this.

Imagine you are a door-to-door sales person.

You knock, a stay at home mom answers the door.

You are selling a new brand of soaps and toothpaste. Her family already has a soap and toothpaste that they use regularly.

Do you think a short and concise pitch will convince her and her family to change their habits to use your product? Or do you think an education on the merits of using your organic and natural product is a better path? It’s of course the latter.

So when you have the readers attention make sure you use the length of text you need to make a full argument for them to become a buyer.

Remove obstacles

I recently purchased an Eight Sleep mattress. I went back-and-forth on the decision for six months. Then one day I told myself ‘if I don’t like it I can return it within 100 days’.

And I bought it.

The lesson? Remove friction so people can buy your product.

The author has found the money you will make by removing the friction of buying your product is far greater than the money you will lose from bad actors.

I have never seen this before but he recommends you try to send someone your product for free. If they want it after a week they can pay you.

If they don’t want it they can send it back.

“Two men came to me each offered me a horse. Both made equal claims. They were good horses, kind and gentle. A child could ride them.

One man said, ‘try the horse for a week. If my claims are not true, come back for your money.’

The other man also said, ‘try the horse for a week.’ But he added, ‘come and pay me then.’

I naturally bought the second man’s horse.“

Speak as a person, not as a company to your customers

Today we see influencers like the Kardashians, Ryan Reynolds, etc building incredible companies.

People prefer to buy products from other people.

It's easier to build trust with a person rather than a company.

The age of brands is dying while the cult of personalities is thriving.

Apply your personal voice where you can in business.

Test everything.

Back in Claude Hopkins day, direct mail was the primary means of selling produts (it's still a great method today).

The cost of direct mail advertising is quite high. Which means the cost between different advertisements can be huge.

Say you pay $2 per sent mailer.

One advertisement may convert 1% of people. This costs the advertiser $200 per customer.

The other one may convert 10% of people ($20 per customer).

At scale these numbers can make one advertisement very profitable while the other one is a big money loser.

It's always important to test in small batches.

Every communication you send, email, text message has a purpose. If you spend a bit more time to be tactical about your messages, you will see a big impact on your life.

Each channel will have a minimum floor

Given that it costs $1+ to send a direct mail advertisement, the author says you need a product to cost $47 or more to be viable using direct mail.

The same applies today. You can capture clients at different costs using different channels. Depending on the price and margin of your product you need to pick the right channel.

A low price, low margin product may only be sold using good Search Engine Optimization (Google Search).

While a high price high margin product like a mattress can be sold using a variety of advertising, partnership and retail channels.

🔑#2 - Tweet of the Week - Call your customers find-out what they want

If you haven't called your customers to ask them why they use your service in a while. Do It! You'll be surprised by what you learn.

This applies to investors as well. Call your LPs and ask them "why are you choosing to invest in me and not somebody else?"

It will help you hone your value proposition to other LPs and customers.

Have a great week!

Sieva