Yunfan Zhu Blog 3: Salesmanship – The Essential Lesson of Entrepreneurs

“Everyone lives by selling something.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

Last week’s readings center on the concepts of creating and spotting “killer business ideas”. Speaking as the devil’s longtime and sometimes exclusive advocate, I would arguing the importance of basic salesmanship should come first before ideas. Coming up with brilliant business ideas are like catching lightening in a bottle, it’s doable, but ever so rare. I recall at the start of the semester we discussed how can potential entrepreneurs come up with golden ideas that will generate success overnight. The answer was to have hundreds if not thousands of ideas, and hoping one of them ends up to be the diamond in the rough.  Call me cynical, but I concede to the statistical improbability. As far as I concern, hunting for killer ideas is just like the gold rush. You can hope for hitting the mother load, but at the same time you have to expect losing all the time, dreams and possessions in chasing nothing but an illusion. I don't know about you, but my sentiment of not losing everything is a lot stronger than hitting the mother load.  This article from Harvard BusinessReview backs up my theory in fine-tuning one’s salesmanship before entering the real business world. (Salesmanship is central to the success of any young company, and entrepreneurs ignore this at their peril.) 

You may think I am a radical, that the brilliance and superiority of your ideas surpass the need of real salesmanship. Maybe your idea is exactly what the market is looking for, there’s a clear demand and you just happen to have the supply. Your products will simply sale themselves. It’s only logical. 
If only reality is this kind and generous towards young entrepreneurs. 

The fact is most people are accustomed to their life styles, they always want more. But more doesn't necessarily mean something new. Sure...the invention of the world wide web as well as the social media have eliminated many obstacles to reach to new customers. But you still have to do what most entrepreneurs are expected to do - to convince people to try something new. And only a few of us can achieve that goal without great salesmanship. 

In this post and my view of the world, salesmanship does not just mean skills to convince other people to buy. Instead, it means the ability to project a different image onto yourself and use it to convince others and make people feel that you are irresistible. We learned how to construct an effective pitch in class, and real salesmanship is the logic behind such construction. Like Dr. Millie Myers said in class on Monday, real salesmanship is the ability to effectively communicate with people. Yes, people, not just your clients and potential investors, but people in general. It’s the same logic behind coming up with thousands of ideas just to get one that shines. To successfully present your salesmanship - the ultimate alter ego of all entrepreneurs, you’d have to practice it all the time and eventually develop another personality, and be able to switch it on and off as you wish. What they’ve been saying for years is true. You are not selling products, you are really selling yourself and your beliefs. Only you DON’T HAVE TO present your true self and real beliefs.

Some of the best salesmen that we know of

I know, this whole salesmanship deal sounds psychologically problematic. But how many successful entrepreneurs are psychologically sound? And don’t you agree that you should master the essence of sales before you come up with a brilliant idea to sale? After all, ideas come and go, but salesmanship follows you for life. If that doesn't convince you, think of this - it’s easier to steal an idea than a set of skills, honor is nothing but a commodity and leverage in the for profit world. 

The whole point of the blog post is really to raise awareness of the real salesmanship. After you are done with all the reading, thinking and practicing of how to catch that lightening of an idea in the bottle…practice your smile, have a random conversation with a stranger, fight for something that’s completely unreasonable against a crowd in public. See if you can change someone’s mind with nothing but words. 

It sounds dumb, but you have to be dumb first to be smart later. And if you somehow managed to find a better way to practice your salesmanship, let me know….Because although as fun as it sounds, I am tired of fake smiling to myself in my bathroom mirror, striking conversations with someone who believes he’s been dead for three times and came back to life in lasers and raising hells and getting gasps for something that’s completely laughable. A small part of me just doesn’t believe it’s worth it to do all that just to start my own business and to chase freedom that may not be there at first place.

If you decide to drink my kool-aid and go down this path of mastering the so-called “salesmanship”, it wouldn’t hurt to pick up a book by Donald Trump and see how he practices his dark magic. That man has issues, but he is good at what he does.

Yes, it's better to have a truly brilliant idea than being a mind-bender. But as a young professional who has a few decades of career ahead of him, I figure it's more useful to learn the trades of selling than creating. Salesmanship is that one special thing that makes you look like you have an idea when you don't. And I dare to say it's almost as good, sometimes even better to have others believe your idea is brilliant than having a real great idea but no recognition.