Transcript

Let’s talk about selling. And let’s talk about a specific form of selling that I like to call entrepreneurial selling. I like to refer to this as the toughest best job there is. Because both of these things are challenging. Entrepreneurship, of course, is challenging and difficult. And so is selling. But we have to do both. We have to get good at both.

Think about our ability to communicate all over the world. Well telecommunications companies, of course, they lay the fiber optic cable across the ocean. They put in the substation and they put in the boxes and infrastructure near our neighborhoods and our businesses. But then think about it, what gives us the ability to actually communicate? It’s what they call the last mile. It’s the last, that wire or wireless signal to the house or the business that gives us the ability to communicate. That’s what’s important. And I think many of us as entrepreneurs, we lose sight of that sometimes with the sales challenge because we think well look, I’ve laid‑‑ I built product, I’ve laid the fiber optic cable. It’s fantastic. It’s fast. It’s beautiful, right? But guess who the last mile is? You are the last mile.

We as entrepreneurs are that last mile that connect to customers because that’s where the market is. One of the things I love to talk just about is just think about the world’s most boring income statement, right? You’ve got an income statement. You’ve got you know, revenue at the top, you’ve got gross margins, operating expenses, marketing expenses, cost of goods sold. You got your bottom line down here. Now think about it for a second, what’s the most important line on that income statement? And most people say, well, Craig, it’s the bottom line, of course. Well, the bottom line is hugely important but guess what? Nothing happens until there’s a top line. We spent a lot of time as entrepreneurs thinking about how to build financial statements and how to run those income statements and looking at all the lines. It’s the top line that counts. It is your ability to sell and make a market that’s absolutely critical to driving that top line growth.