The Most Important Skill In Business.

single most important skill any entrepreneur can learn any entrepreneur can learn as sales any I don't care what you do I don't care if you're a coder you're an engineer you're a mechanic you're I don't know a beer brewed drafts I don't care what you do the single most critical skill you will learn as an entrepreneur and it is it is 10 times more important than every other skill that comes after it its sales so there's if there's one excuse I never accept from entrepreneurs is a console then don't be an entrepreneur but there's many

other go be an accountant somewhere complex's HR you know they're companies that have nice long meetings and people sit and they have cookies and biscuits and there's an agenda go there go there that's what you belong but in in our world we sell so so so that's the first thing and the second thing I want to say to your to your question is I also hate entrepreneurs that have the idea that they've got to have run way before they start a business and there's this pervasive culture now in South Africa you know people go and

create a business plan and the business plan I said I need 18 months runway and I'm gonna raise capital in this 18 months or lose runway where are you running on whose money right because somebody has to pay the piper you want to start this thing and you're telling funders we've got a part with money to fund your dreams my own dreams player I find my own dreams so the the single most important skill you learn is sell so what did I do I sold ice to do this thing called burn the line I stood

in my business today the team will tell you I still tell them burn the line you know what that means means you pick up the phone you come up with a telephone directory and you do not put that thing down until you close the sale I don't care what you say what are you selling HR consulting services what do you how do you think you're gonna do it invite people for coffees at Melrose Arch that won't work run an email shot on MailChimp that won't work it's never a little campaign on Twitter Facebook that will

not work get on the phone get a directory pick up the phone and tile the [ __ ] number that's it it's not it I mean I it really is not that complex even today people don't guess tonight even today I sell when the team has the sale they've got a close and they need the big hitter they pull Vasya and I what I I will walk in and I will close that's what I do because if you if you can't bridge that skill as an entrepreneur everything else you learn is the material your ability

to develop now you know you guys I just I feel like people are just distracted you're designing websites and Lobos lays on that Dean profiles what are you doing guys people are on a short circuit just just if you're an entrepreneur today and you've been in business for less than three years a task for you when you leave you when you leave you designate one day in the week designate a morning in that day you started nine you finish at eleven you come up with a cold cold list of to 200 you know I know

because in two hours you'll make 200 phone calls and here's how the rules work in sales is ten for one you make ten phone calls you get for appointments one sale but if you don't make the ten phone calls the one sale doesn't come when you've done that and you've got clients and your billing and you're doing work then you can worry about what's my website look like what does my brand look like putting up an Instagram picture of you and your nice car and then you can do that stuff as the very first speaker

in South Africa to what we do call a Salt desert which means I went to all agencies in the country and I said to them I don't want to work so Afghan market is fairly oligopolistic so the the access to conferencing and client events is controlled by agencies so going to an agency in telling them you don't wanna work with him is suicide I went to order them and I said I don't want to work with you I don't you to touch my stuff you don't represent me take all my stuff down on your website

the reason I did it was because I understood a very simple fundamental law of marketing which is he who sells the product controls product placement positioning and sentiment and if there were selling me they were positioning me next to speak as they had no business positioning me next to some I was going I was like losing guys do you understand that I've got now four but at the time I was like to understand that I've got like two degrees I'm building a business I'm working these kind of hours and you're comparing me with this game

know so take my stuff off and when I did it my price tripled how are you then this is the point that's the point I'm coming to so the first thing I did is I got rid of them these sort of third-party distributors the second thing I did is I thought and this is a it's a great lesson for entrepreneurs to try just try this for yourself if you ever lack motivation if you ever lack motivation just imagine your worst nightmares coming true just imagine the worst nightmare coming to imagine you've got zero money in

the bank account biggest customer your biggest customer leaves you and your biggest competitor doubles on revenue what would you do there's nothing like a good crisis to galvanize effort so but what I do sometimes is I force myself into the crisis now go things are comfortable excuse my language let's [ __ ] [ __ ] up so that's so holding so what I did so I did that and then so then what I did is I knew now that I fired them I now have to build my own distribution model right so we're going back

guys this is o6 I went and registered voci as a trademark then for September I then got boosted or Sierra today then for September wire.com this is before people even knew about websites there was no Facebook no Twitter back then I went and did it then I went and found out where were the conferencing people going to conferences they're all going to mice and sake and Aldi and that's where I was and that's why I positioned my brand and it's an interesting thing if you believe in the quality of your product you don't need nobody

to sell it for you so I knew all I needed was one engagement one would give me four because in the room there were 200 people four of them need somebody for their next event those four give me 60 and then it's a multiple effect so when I looked at her I went and thought why would I develop one product and then just statically deliver this thing same joke st. Paul's same count doesn't make sense so what I then started doing is I'd go every single client that was booking me I'd go and meet with

them I didn't understand it but in my mind I was building the network because the speaker would the CIO's went wait he wants to meet with us yeah the speakers speaking at our conference was to me why does he want to meet with us he says he wants us to brief him brief him about what so they're not going meet now I meet Stephen Kozlov who runs investor and I so tell me about your business tell me what's happened tell me what what you started from tell me what the challenges you're facing tell me what

the strategy of the firm tell me what you see it in five years time who else gets this kind of access I walk out I've got a direct relationship and then what I did and this was it still to this day it's my competitive edge every single engagement every single client is tailored but you got to remember I trained what is it four years is a classically trained public speaker won the World Championship twice my skill is I can develop a presentation yesterday deliver today like I've done it for 10 years that's what I do

so so because of it I could I can develop different presentations tailored and deliver them at the 99% efficacy each time most people can only do one because they have to rehearse it a thousand times makes sense so when I built motivate I built it with a zero marketing cost zero no marketing budget for the first six years we had no website you need a website I traveled to Washington I became a fellow at the balanced scorecard Institute why because in all nine 2010 I was implementing balanced scorecard implementations while before people knew what balanced

scorecard is I've since forgotten what balanced scorecard is because my life has kind of moved on and now everybody does funny scorecard so the point is when I dense and how did I know there was a client in fact I'll tell you does the AAA they were implementing a balanced scorecard process and I would ask me to come and speak at the conference and that in the middle of it they said can you help us with this I said oh I dunno what it is but I'll find out and I went and learnt and then

I came back there was a fella the balanced scorecard Institute developed the product has started selling it I made maybe thirty part over the years selling just that product but but the point is put yourself in their space be aggressive learn be hungry be humble be willing to learn new things all the time and don't sit with version 1 of the product iterate this thing as often as you can get better every single time you have if you have an employee and this is the test if you're not renew if you've an employer you today

you fire them if they come back in three months time they shouldn't recognize what you're doing you should go oh yeah just wake up you guys are sleeping you know there's the young people say you're sleeping on yourself you guys are sleeping aren't African entrepreneurs you guys are sleeping you're can I be honest you're sleeping you're entitled you're lazy you have a Shiva you have a quick return syndrome you have too many expectations too quickly just wake up guys wake up it took it took 40 it took 30 years to build Apple it took 40

years to build Dell it took I don't know 40 years to build Microsoft and this is in the world's largest economy you're in the bottom of the darkest economy on earth how long do you think is gonna take you wake up it's and it's and it's and it's not just about the effort but wake up on everything wake up to the opportunities that are alive wake up to the political systems that govern us just wake up be awake watch what's happening around you read love live learn be in spaces be involved just get in get

in plug your take this plug of your skin life and plug it into the core of the system so that we can all be in it together but just wake up too many of us are sleeping we're doing the same things you've always done you're doing the same things everybody else is done and then you're waiting for the world to come and meet you halfway and it doesn't work that way just wake up and and by the way in today's environment you have zero excuse not to know how to do something I could understand uses

pretend are fast enough knowing but in today's world of ubiquity of information the zero marginal cost the Internet of Things you have no excuse not to know how to do something for yourself zero [Music]