What To Tell An Entrepreneur Who Doesn’t Want To Do Sales Or Marketing
I read this question on Reddit yesterday:
This is an interesting question because a lot of would-be entrepreneurs have this problem. Sales and marketing is daunting, and a lot of us tend towards the introverted end of the spectrum where the idea of going out and talking to people is scary.
In this article, I’ll answer the question in a friendly and productive manner. It’s easy to say, “If you don’t want to learn sales and marketing then you’ve no business being an entrepreneur.” Whilst there’s some truth in that, it’s not helpful to anyone.
Let’s be productive instead.
What Holds You Back In Business
There are two things that hold people back in business. They are:
- Not knowing what to do
- Not being able to do it
Now, most people think that their problems fall under number two on that list, when really they’re a definite number one.
There are very few things that people are unable to do in general, but a lot of specific problems that they won’t be able to do. We’ll come back to those later.
Mostly though, we fall in the first problem: you don’t know what you’re doing. To add to that, most people are taught that things like marketing, finance or business strategy are these mythical, complicated beasts and the very notion makes people think, “I could never do that even if I wanted to!”
Needless to say, sales and marketing fall under that category. Even if you’re a shut-in, introverted person who literally cries at the thought of speaking to another human being, you can learn sales and marketing and pick your platforms wisely enough that you never have to.
That said, if you feel like that, then you should probably fix those social and psychological issues because life can be better for you.
Back to the topic at hand: what holds you back in business as far as sales and marketing go?
You don’t know what you’re doing. This is a single basic formula that anyone can master.
Find a target market. Learn their problem. Provide a solution. Refine and repeat.
If you do that, then sales and marketing are straightforward. Not necessarily easy, but that’s the formula that will always work.
Now, once you have that formula solved, you can then move on. Here’s a second formula:
Find where your target market congregates. Present your working solution to them in language they understand. Sell them your solution. Nurture their future needs and opinions.
This can be as simple as hanging out in a Facebook group or throwing ads up for specific Google searches. For the social among you, it might be going to the local knitting club and saying, “would you like to try my home made cupcakes?”
This isn’t evil sales and it’s not silver-tongued marketing wisdom, but it’s what works. Inevitably and sustainably.
Now, if there are any reticent entrepreneurs out there who think the above is other-worldly in terms of difficulty or unacceptability, please let me know and I’ll try and solve your problem.
But most people are going to agree that they can fill the above basic requirements without too much strain. I’d suggest that if you don’t want to do the above – that is find a target market, solve their problem and become a part of their community in some way – your business idea isn’t a good fit for you. Find another one where you’d enjoy the above.
Let’s talk about what you can’t do as an entrepreneur.
What Can’t You Do?
There comes a point as an entrepreneur where you realise that you can’t do everything. Whether it’s constantly chasing new opportunities or bootstrapping some technical aspect that will take you months, eventually you have to draw the line.
For instance, it’s not feasible for you to spend ten years studying tax law if all you want to do is set up shop in another country; you’re better off paying an accountant or whatever.
It’s not time-efficient to learn how to code to replace a button on your website when you could buy a solution or hire a programmer.
Let’s talk about sales and marketing as an entrepreneur, because that’s the theme of the article.
From above, I’m assuming you all realise that the basics of sales and marketing are a key job that you have to do as an entrepreneur. Finding your audience and giving them what they want are the basis of any sales or marketing, and it’s necessary. No questions asked.
What you can’t do depends on several things:
- Your budget
- Your needs as a company
- The time taken to learn stuff
The good news for the aspiring entrepreneur who doesn’t want to muddy their souls with the sneaky sales stuff is that you don’t have to. The bad news is that you have to pay for whatever you don’t do.
As always, there are time versus money arguments to be made.
Generally, the more technically demanding a skill, the more likely that you can’t do it. Things like:
- PPC optimisation
- Complicated web structure
- High-level copywriting
Those things are not things you should worry about learning and taking responsibility for unless they are core business components. Why? You can hire someone.
Final Thoughts
I put in the above section because I wanted to bring up the limits to what an effective entrepreneur should be doing with their time and energy. You can learn the above three skills and many more, but at a certain point it’s better to pay someone to do it for you.
Notice though that those are complicated, high-level skills. The average entrepreneur who says, “I can’t do sales” should not be concerned with advanced paid advertising strategies or learning how to write a sales page that converts at 4% instead of 3%.
The average entrepreneur should concern themselves with getting a good product to market and delivering it well. This involves sales and marketing, but only at a very basic level. It’s fundamental to a business and not really negotiable if you want to stay in business.
Providing our hypothetical entrepreneur follows the basic steps above, they’ll generate cashflow, an audience and momentum – at which point they can either stay a small operation or hire in people/tools that’ll help them where they are not comfortable.