38 Weeks to Get Rich
Welcome to the “38 Weeks to Get Rich”, where each week we’ll break down a section from Naval’s iconic tweetstorm and interviews on the topics of wealth, freedom, money, status, and happiness.
The full PDF is available here.
What follows is my summary & key takeaways to help you digest the 127 page document.
Week 15: Learn to Sell, Learn to Build
Learn to sell. Learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable.
Building & Selling.
Both of these are broad terms, and to help you understand what’s meant we’ll use some examples.
Building could mean a product designer, an engineer, a developer, or it could be the person who acquires the asset or assembles the team. Building is broad. Find out what building looks like in your industry, or with your specialized knowledge.
Selling isn’t just the sales person, it’s also the marketing, the brand ambassadors, the PR team, it’s also vision casting and inspiring staff, it’s even donor/investor relationship management.
When you begin to see yourself as a builder and a sales person (regardless of department or title) your opportunities begin to broaden.
Dynamic Duo.
Not every can do both, and sometimes depending on how bad you are at something it’s better to lean into your strengths and hire or partner with someone who’s naturally strong where you’re weak.
Visionary leaders like Steve Jobs will partner with someone like Steve Wozniak to produce a world changing company and product. Granted, to some extent, both were technical, and both did some selling. But it’s not too much of a stretch to say that Jobs drove the sales while Woz drove the technical side.
It’s a common partnership, especially in Silicon Valley and the greater tech industry. Founding partners will often compliment each other’s weaknesses. One as the builder, one as the salesperson.
Doing Both is a Superpower.
If you are lucky enough to do both you don’t just create a good business; you can create an entire industry. Elon Musk revolutionized the space industry, Steve Jobs heavily influenced the personal computer industry, Marc Andreessen created one of the first popular web browsers. These individuals were both the builders (or at least technical enough to lead a team of builders) and the primary voices that sold their product/industry.
It’s Easier to Teach an Engineer how to Sell.
If you’re a builder, the good news is that it’s not hard to make the leap to learn how to market and sell. But if you’re a salesperson, learning the cutting edge of a technical building skill will be a lot harder. Better to double-down on your strengths and hire someone who has “specialized knowledge” in building what you want to sell.
What to do next.
If you’re young in your career, and feel so inclined, learn how to build something new like Web 3.0. If you’re further along in your career it may not be the time to take up a new skillset; rather lean into your sales and marketing side and help sell someone’s technical buildout that hasn’t been discovered by the world at-large yet.
I hope this helps you. Next week we’ll review chapter 16 and learn some tips and tricks for growing in any field/industry.
If you enjoyed this, invite someone to join the program, they can register their email here: https://mailchi.mp/a51b9c3424e0/38weekstogetrich