30-second read
These are all of the things I’ve sold over the course of my professional career (to date):
- Wine
- Insurance: Life, supplemental, disability, health (at varying levels of complexity)
- Financial services (family office, high net worth)
- Financial coaching programs (where I made the most $$ so far)
- Entrepreneurial coaching programs
- Grocery
- Retail personal care products (shoutout to Lush!)
- Smoothies
- Recruiting services
- Bamboo fabric baby clothes (Amazon business)
- Vacation rental software
- Continuing education programs
- Wholesale flowers
- Ski rental packages
- Snapchat geotargeting filters (for advertising)
- Employer branding services
- Content for recruiting purposes
- College media
In my experience, unless you’re selling something highly technical that requires deep domain knowledge, industry experience doesn’t correlate with success.
Key learning: The knowledge required to sell (almost anything) competently and successfully can be obtained quickly—with very little ramp time—so long as the person selling is given the freedom and autonomy to learn through the experience of doing without micro-management or fear of failure.
In simple terms: Let new sellers sell without looking over their shoulders or monitoring their behavior. Ramp time decreases exponentially when trust is a core value.
Food for thought for all the hiring managers out there.