销售只卖四样东西：时间、金钱、性、认可

Can I show you the highest value comment on Hacker News that I've ever seen?

Yeah, that has a lot of weight.

This is from like years and years ago, but it's this comment about sales cuz Hacker News is full of engineers and they're like, "Hey, like, you know, I suck at sales. Anybody can help me get better at this?" And this guy wrote seven points and I just nodded my head so vigorously that my C4 C5s all

sore. So, let me just give you this here.

He said the guy goes, "Yeah, there's tons of resources to help you with sales, but I'll start with I'll try to offer some simple tips. Number one, sales is a lot like golf. You can make it so complicated that it's almost impossible, or you can simply walk up and hit the ball. I've been leading sales orders for about 20 years. My advice is to walk up and hit the ball. Number two, sales about people and it's about problem-solving.

It's not about tech or solutions or chemicals or lines of code or artichokes. It's about people. It's about solving problems. Number three, people buy four things and four things only, ever. Those four things are time, money, sex, and approval or peace of mind. If you try to sell anything other than those four things, you will fail. Number four,

people buy aspirin, always. They'll buy vitamins, sometimes, and but it'll be unpredictable. Sell aspirin. Number five, I say in every talk that I give that all things being equal, people will buy from their friends. So, make everything else equal and then go make a lot of friends.

[laughter]

Um number six, being valuable and useful is all you'll ever need to sell things. Help people out, send them interesting posts, write birthday cards, record videos, like sharing your ideas of how they could grow their business, introduce them to people who would benefit from knowing each other, and get out of the way. Expect nothing in return. Do this consistently and authentically and people will find ways to give you money.

I promise. Number seven, no one cares about your quota, your payroll, your opex, your burn rate, no one. They care about the problem you're solving for them. There are more than a hundred trillion dollars in the economy just waiting for you to breathe it in. Good luck.

[laughter]

Who is the god of Hacker News?

Are you reading any books?

I am reading Influence again by Robert Cialdini.

Why are you rereading Robert Cialdini's Influence?

Because as the great Buddhist proverb says, "No man steps in the same river twice, for he is not the same man and the river is not the same river."

Oh my god. Have you How long have you waited to use that one?

[laughter]

You start reading books, what are you doing? You just start turn You're turning into a quote machine.

No, but really I think, you know, reading the best books again at different times in your life, it's a totally different book. You think you've read it and what I found is you you remember, you know, shockingly little of books. And so, going back and reading great books is um is like, you know, the gift that keeps giving in that sense. So, so that's what I'm doing.

Uh did you ever read the blog post that I wrote about Influence, his book?

No.

Uh in 2014, I had just read his book and I wanted to implement what he what he he talked about and he has this rule called the rule of reciprocity, which basically just says, uh let's say that uh neighbor one goes to neighbor two, let's say I go to Shawn and I say, "Hey, can I borrow a cup of sugar?" and you say, "Yeah, I got you." The next day, if you come to me and say, "Hey, can I borrow your car for the day?" even though even though those two ask aren't even remotely equal, I, because of the rule of reciprocity, am very likely to lend you my car because the rule of reciprocity states that if you do something nice for someone, they are they have a high chance of doing something nice in exchange to you, even if the they aren't equal.

And uh that's like how society is is built, one could say, is like based off the rule of reciprocity. So, when I was a kid, I was uh 24 years old, there was a motorcycle for sale, I think for $1,800, and I went to buy it and I took photos and documented all of this as I went, and I was like, "Hey, uh you have the motorcycle for $1800? Let me see it. Let me check it out. Awesome. Oh, by the way, I'm really sorry I'm late.

I I just I wanted to stop and get a Coke cuz it was kind of hot outside. I got one for you if you want one. Do you want one?" And he goes, "Yeah, sure. Thanks." Um and then uh as I start talking to him and I'm like, "Look, I love this motorcycle, but like I'm a young guy. I don't have a lot of money. I know you're asking for 18.

[snorts]

Could Could you do 14?" And he goes, "You know, you brought me the Coke. You seem like a nice kid. Yeah, I guess I can do that." And so like there's a blog post where I took photos of myself like when he was when he was like turned around like signing the paperwork, I like took the took the photo. But anyway, the rule of reciprocity is pretty amazing.

So, let me tell you a funny follow-up story to that. I remember you telling the story about the Diet Coke and the negotiation and how you always bring two Diet Cokes to a negotiation, correct? You've told me this before like 10 years ago, right?

to bring a gift. Yeah, I try to bring something.

Well, I took it as Diet Coke. So, here's what happened. I uh recently uh I was coaching this high school basketball team, as you know. And anytime I'm doing a project, I want to try to make it as interesting, as cool as possible. And what I do sometimes is I do things that are maybe like not the default way of doing things. So, I was trying to create content for the team so that the team would have like really cool like media going with it.

And so, the principal and the AD did not like it.

Are you talking about the the post that you made about your doing being a coach?

Of being a coach, yeah. And how we were going to try to have this take this underdog team and try to get them to be state champions. And I was going to we're going to record the vlog along the way. So, post the vlog, it gets 20,000 views in the first 24 hours. But one of those views was the principal or the AD. They call me, they're like, "Hey, you need to take this down." So, we say, "Okay, we'll take it down." And he says, "I want to meet with you.

Be in my office Monday."

Dude, you got called to the principal's office. That's the most principal thing ever.

[laughter]

And so, here I am. I thought I was past this. I'm now in my late 30s. And I'm I'm I'm nervous. I'm going to the principal's office. And I bring So, we're we're recording a vlog of this thing and I I'm telling the vlog I said, "You know, my friend Sam taught me this this trick, this little little the law of reciprocity. Let me Let me put you guys on some game. You know, people have this really high likelihood to return the favor if you do a small favor for them."

I said, "Watch I said I'm I'm going to be late to this meeting, but I'm going to stop and get this Diet Coke cuz this is the most important part of the meeting." And I'm like, "Follow me." The vlog camera follows me and we get two Diet Cokes and we go and I'm so ready for this and I get to the meeting and we sit down and I'm like, "I don't fully remember the line that you said about like how to do it." And I think there's a actually a really specific way in the book that Robert Cialdini describes it, which is um two people are doing a psych study, the guy walks out, and he comes back and he says, "Hey, they I asked the guy if we if I could have a Coke."

He said, "Yeah, so I brought you one, too." Um so, it's kind of kind of sounds like very like you know, thoughtful and in passing. And you said a set a very similar thing. And so, I walk in and I just go He's like, "Hey guys." And I go, "You want a Diet Coke?" And then he's like [laughter] And he just go

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