Jason Fried of 37signals explains how to make money, starting with a lesson he learned at his second job, as a teenager:
I was working at Shelby’s Pro Shop, a golf and tennis retailer in Deerfield, where I grew up. I sold shoes and tennis rackets. I didn’t play tennis, but I learned how to be a very good tennis-shoe and tennis-racket salesman. That’s because I made the discovery that people’s reasons for buying things often don’t match up with the company’s reason for selling them.
Manufacturers used to dispatch reps to the pro shop to educate us on their latest and greatest technologies. They’d tell us about the new ethylene vinyl acetate midsoles that made shoes more comfortable; the Goodyear-brand rubber outsoles that made the shoes more durable; the new variation of Nike Air that was miles ahead of the competition.
They thought they were arming us with facts that would impress the customers. But, it turned out, none of that stuff mattered. In fact, it had a negative effect. When you describe things in terms people don’t understand, they tend not to trust you as much. Trust is important. You can bluff your way into money, but for only so long.
Once I stopped slinging the technical terms, I realized that when customers shop for shoes, they do three things. They consider the look and style. They try them on to see if they’re comfortable. And they consider the price. Endorsements by famous athletes help a lot, too. But the technology, the features, the special-testing labs — I can’t remember a single customer who cared. I sold a boatload of shoes and tennis rackets that summer.
Understanding what people really want to know — and how that differs from what you want to tell them — is a fundamental tenet of sales. And you can’t get good at making money unless you get good at selling.