5 Million Dollar Sales Lessons I Learned The Hard Way (Don’t Do What I Did)

In business, everything sounds good on paper until it raises its hand and slaps you into a different reality.

Mistakes are guaranteed. Lessons are plentiful. But as time passes, you get a good grasp on what the business, but more importantly, the customers of the business need.

One of my businesses is vastly different than it was ten years ago.

And that’s where all my sales lessons began:

Lesson 1: Sales isn’t about what you sell; it’s about the result you help create.

My MBA didn’t teach me about sales.

Nor did an incredible sales mentor from an ivy league school who has sold billions of dollars to show me the ropes. Instead, my teaching came from believing sales was about selling and not helping.

Well, it’s not.

Sales are about helping someone achieve an outcome that is exponentially more valuable than the price they pay for it.

Lesson 2: Don’t hire the wrong type of salespeople.

I’ve hired every type of salesperson.