Not even Ron Burgundy could bag a classy lady without his patented sales pitch:
Burgundy: I wanna say something. I’m gonna put it out there; if you like it, you can take it, if you don’t, send it right back. I want to be on you.
I love the planning phase of projects. I love developing a marketing strategy, creating a business model, calculating revenues and expenses (my only vice is research – graphs and charts make me nauseated.) But if I’m working on the other parts, coming up with the sort of pristine business plan Greek poets write epics about, I think to myself, “Dammit, why wasn’t I doing this stuff in school? How many hours did I waste sleeping in class or getting pissed before exams?”
But I’m starting to realize as glorious as planning is, the best is yet to come. The best part is selling the plan. Placing your baby into its swaddling cloths before presenting it to the three wise men. Sending pictures to all the relatives who don’t care. Decking it out in Sunday’s best to prove the high school doubters wrong – your offspring wouldn’t look like the devil’s hell spawn.
You reverently hand your plan over to someone else, but not before offering latex gloves and a look that says, “Do you know how lucky you are?” And without further ado, the person holding your plan proceeds to defecate all over it. Doesn’t matter if they’re a Fortune 500 CEO or Dirty Pete the Clown – they’ll find a reason to treat your business plan like a diaper.
It may seem sadistic to enjoy this process with your shorts at your ankles and smile on your face – but if your skin can handle it, over time, this kind of input and criticism will put you light-years ahead of the competitors. First, the more eyes reading your plan, the more holes you’ll find, and the better prepared you’ll be. Second, when you offer your plan up to review, whether it’s in writing or verbally, you’re selling. And the most important thing in business is selling.
I struggled to understand the importance of selling, especially since I straddle the mental fence between entrepreneur and writer – some writers (mostly fiction writers) absolutely refuse to talk about their ideas. Sometimes, it’s too hard to explain what your vision is – you can only show them the finished product. There are plenty of brilliant, world-shaking, orgasmic ideas out there (for example, in my head.) But it only takes one critic to take the steam out of your hypothetical sail, killing the story forever.
If you possess Shakespeare-like talent, maybe you won’t have to learn to sell those ideas. Hopefully, they’ll be recognized for their merit without efforts to target an audience, without a marketing plan or solid financials. For the rest of us mere mortals, however, work on the art of selling and your craft – you’ll reap the dividends.
