Recently, I had a Jr. High kid in my neighborhood text me to ask if he can interview me for his Entrepreneurship class.
Ok. Sure.
He comes over. And then asks me questions.
Questions that you would expect from someone with an academic background in Entrepreneurship.
What do you sell.
Where did you get the idea for it.
How did you start your business.
Who are you primary customers.
What was important when you started your business.
What mistakes did you make.
What was your biggest challenge so far.
What was your pivot point.
How did you grow it.
The list goes on.
As I answered, I knew it wasn’t what he expected. His replies were in the range of “oh…” to “oh…. kay….”
For a successful entrepreneur, all those things are irrelevant.
So I asked:
Are you writing a paper or do you want to learn… then I would have different answers for you.
“I want to learn, what advice would you give me?”
So I gave him three.
Sales is the only thing that matters.
Learn to sell. Whatever it is.
Sell your product before you make your product.
The first time I talked about outsourcing, I taught people what I knew to help them outsource better. I sold it, and a lot of people bought it… and that time, I thought well… I guess now I have to make a product. I got the assurance that there was a market for it.
Same with my son who sold bikes. He posted ads, and when he got a bunch of guys interested, that was when he knew he had a market and he proceeded with the purchase of those products.
Typically people would do it the other way. Set up the inventory only to realize later on that no one wants to buy it.
Everything you learn in the academic world about entrepreneurship won’t matter.
Accounting is silly. What they’ll teach you in marketing is silly. The terminologies they teach you is silly. How to start your business is silly. I mean…don’t get me wrong. Those things are fine.
There’s a lot more you can learn…
But…
The only thing that matters is making sales.
Learn to sell.
Hire a great OFS to take care of the other details of your business.
I’ll walk you through the process.
John