←back to thread

Ask HN: How to learn to sell?

355 points rasulkireev | 1 comments | 16 Oct 22 15:19 UTC | HN request time: 0.415s | source

Hey HN,

I am a solo founder that just finished writing code for my project (MVP) and am ready to find clients.

- for the sake of the question, my clients will be small physical businesses. Think, Family Doctor's Office, Local Cafe, Small barber, etc.

I will be developing a blog for SEO purposes and doing other things to promote my business online. However, I believe the key to success here will be "Cold Sales". I have never done that before. So, if you could recommend a book, a blog post, other online resources, or you just have a random advice that I could learn from, I would be very thankful.

Suffice it to say I will be starting out ASAP, even though I don't know anything. I believe practice is the best teacher. However, if there are any resources that could help me get up and running quicker that would be awesome. Thanks a ton in advance.

1. hv23 ◴[16 Oct 22 19:05 UTC] No.33226269[source]▶
I'd recommend "To Sell is Human" by Daniel Pink: https://www.amazon.com/Sell-Human-Surprising-Moving-Others-e...

I'm a product-focused founder. I read this a few years ago when starting out with selling my company's product, and it helped me reframe sales as something essential to most of our jobs in the knowledge economy.

There's a compelling argument that persuasion and storytelling are core human activities, rather than the domain of extroverted "salespeople". Adopting that mental model was just as useful for me as learning the tactics of how to be effective at sales.