Tuesday, 8.26pm
Sheffield, U.K.
Like dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or squirrels in a chain, ambitious men still climb and climb, with great labor, and incessant anxiety, but never reach the top. – Robert Browning
If you have ever been under pressure to get involved in sales you will find that there are a great many myths about how sales works.
For a fee, many people will teach you their favourite ones.
This is something to guard against.
Think about it logically.
If someone has an edge, a source of competitive advantage, then why would they reveal their secrets to you?
After all, you want to exploit that advantage because it should make you money.
For example, let’s say you learn that there’s a foolproof way to trade currency futures – this is going to make you money.
Wouldn’t you keep that to yourself and trade the markets for as long as that worked for you – raking in the money?
Why would you stop trading to spend some time teaching others the techniques you’ve used?
Is it because you know it doesn’t work and your product is essentially a long con?
This is what I struggle with whenever I come across a situation where someone wants to teach their method rather than exploit their method.
Because the incentives are misaligned.
What works is usually simple. It’s a small tweak, or a straightforward process.
Common sense in practice. Or experience applied. That sort of thing.
But I can’t just sell you a few sentences – I have to create a complicated structure so it looks like you’re getting something of value.
So you end up with this universe of mushrooming courses and packages and content that are puffed up versions of something that’s usually quite simple.
A paragraph of insight turned into 40,000 words.
If you are really good at doing something then you should just do that – make a living from that thing.
If you decide that you want to teach others then you should do it because it’s something you are driven to do – it’s a public service, not a product or business.
Warren Buffet’s letters to shareholders are an amazing source to learn from – but they’re out there, free on the Internet for anyone to access.
Imagine if he had charged for his writing? Given his billions, it’s cost him to write down his thoughts for others to read.
The people I’ve learned the most from put their stuff out because they want to share, to explore, to learn more about what they do by expressing it to others – it’s a selfish thing really. They learn more by teaching than they would in any other way.
They’d teach for free quite happily.
And I think that’s the only way to really be happy – to feel like you aren’t on a treadmill to nowhere.
To work on things you would do anyway whether you were paid or not.
Cheers,
Karthik Suresh
Handcrafted insight 