20 years of sales expertise in under 2 minutes...

My favorite words of advice on sales tactics appeared out of nowhere. On a Hacker News thread about personal branding, someone asked: “Is there a sales 101 for nerds?” The top answer went viral – and for good reason…

What followed was a rapid-fire masterclass on the art of selling. The author turned out to be Colin Dowling, founder of sales company Raincloud. His insights are blunt, succinct, and informed by years of experience (just like a good Memo). Here’s what he shared...

“Sales is a lot like golf. You can make it so complicated as to be impossible or you can simply walk up and hit the ball. I’ve been leading and building sales orgs for almost 20 years and my advice is to walk up and hit the ball.”

“Sales is about people and it’s about problem-solving. It is not about solutions or technology or chemicals or lines of code or artichokes. It's about people and it's about solving problems.”

“People buy four things and four things only. Ever. Those four things are time, money, sex, and approval/peace of mind. If you try selling something other than those four things, you will fail.

“People buy aspirin always. They buy vitamins only occasionally and at unpredictable times. Sell aspirin.”

“I say in every talk I give: ‘All things being equal, people buy from their friends. So make everything else equal, then go make a lot of friends.’”

“Being valuable and useful is all you ever need to do to sell things. Help people out. Send interesting posts. Write birthday cards. Record videos sharing your ideas for growing their business.”

“Introduce people who would benefit from knowing each other, then get out of the way, expecting nothing in return. Do this consistently and authentically and people will find ways to give you money. I promise.”

“No one cares about your quota, your payroll, your opex, your burn rate, etc. No one. They care about the problem you are solving for them. There is more than 100 trillion dollars in the global economy just waiting for you to breathe it in. Good luck.”