Sales is a lot like golf: you can make it so complicated that it's almost impossible, or you can simply walk up and hit the ball.
The speaker introduces a hacker news comment offering seven simple sales tips, starting with the idea that sales should be kept simple, like golf. ✦ AI generated
Speaker 1 · My First Million · 2026-08-04 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 0:27
Yeah, there's tons of resources to help you with sales, but I'll start with I'll try to offer some simple tips. Number one, sales is a lot like golf. You can make it so complicated that it's almost impossible or you can simply walk up and hit the ball. I've been leading sales or for about 20 years. My advice is to walk up and hit the ball. Number two, sales is about people and it's about problem solving. It's not about tech or solutions or chemicals or lines of code or artichokes. It's about people. It's about solving problems. Number three, people buy four things and four things only ever. Those four things are time, money, sex, and approval or peace of mind. If you try to sell anything other than those four things, you will fail. Number four, people buy aspirin always. They'll buy vitamins sometimes and but it'll be unpredictable. Sell aspirin. Number five, I say in every talk that I give that all things being equal, people will buy from their friends. So, make everything else equal and then go make a lot of friends. Number six, being valuable and useful is all you'll ever need to sell things. Help people out, send them interesting posts, write birthday cards, record videos, sharing your ideas of how they could grow their business, introduce them to people who would benefit from knowing each other, and get out of the way. Expect nothing in return. Do this consistently and authentically, and people will find ways to give you money. I promise. Number seven, no one cares about your quota, your payroll, your opex, your burn rate. No one. They care about the problem you're solving for them. There are more than a hundred trillion dollars in the economy just waiting for you to breathe it in. Good luck.
verbatim transcript · starts at 0:27
0:27so vigorously that my C4C5 is a little sore. So let me just give you this here. He said the guy goes, "Yeah, there's tons of resources to help you with sales, but I'll start with I'll try to offer some simple tips. Number one, sales is a lot like golf. You can make it so complicated that it's almost impossible or you can simply walk up and hit the ball. I've been leading sales or
0:46for about 20 years. My advice is to walk up and hit the ball. Number two, sales is about people and it's about problem solving. It's not about tech or solutions or chemicals or lines of code or artichokes. It's about people. It's about solving problems. Number three, people buy four things and four things only ever. Those four things are time, money, sex, and approval or peace of mind. If you try to sell anything other
1:06than those four things, you will fail. Number four, >> people buy aspirin always. They'll buy vitamins sometimes and but it'll be unpredictable. Sell aspirin. Number five, I say in every talk that I give that all things being equal, people will buy from their friends. So, make everything else equal and then go make a lot of friends. [laughter] Um, number six, being valuable and useful is all you'll ever need to sell
1:31things. Help people out, send them interesting posts, write birthday cards, record videos, sharing your ideas of how they could grow their business, introduce them to people who would benefit from knowing each other, and get out of the way. Expect nothing in return. Do this consistently and authentically, and people will find ways to give you money. I promise. Number seven, no one cares about your quota, your payroll, your opex, your burn rate.
1:51No one. They care about the problem you're solving for them. There are more than a hundred trillion dollars in the economy just waiting for you to breathe it in. Good luck. [laughter] >> Who is this god of hacker news? >> Are you reading any books? >> I am reading influence again by Robert Chelini. >> Why are you rereading uh Robert Chaldini's influence? Because as the great Buddhist proverb says, "No man
2:16steps in the same river twice, for he is not the same man and the river is not the same river." >> Oh my god. How long have you waited to use that one? [laughter] >> You start reading books. What can you do? You just start turning into a quote machine. No, but really I think you know reading the best books again at different times in your life, it's a
- ·Sales can be overcomplicated or kept simple — choose simple.
- ·20 years of experience: just walk up and hit the ball.
- ·Sales is about people and problem solving, not tech or products.
- ·People only buy time, money, sex, and approval/peace of mind.
- ·Sell aspirin (urgent problems), not vitamins (nice-to-haves).
- ·All things equal, people buy from friends — make friends.
- ·Being valuable and useful is all you need to sell.
- ·Help consistently with no expectation — money will follow.
- ·No one cares about your quota or burn rate — only their problem.