THE ART OF NOT SELLING: An Organic Approach to Growth
Back in the fall of 2007, I was a student at Carnegie Mellon University. I had just been elected to the leadership of the Undergraduate Investment Club — a student organization that focused on investing, finance careers, and business school events.
I was struck by how little us undergrads knew about what was happening in the business world. This was knowledge we needed to help us in investing and job interviews. The Wall Street Journal was available for free on campus — but who had time to read that? There were numerous finance websites, but all dedicated to professionals or specific niches like accountants or quantitative analysts.
I was passionate about the markets. I wanted to learn more and I wanted to share that knowledge in a way that was accessible to undergraduates like me. So I started a side project (or “side hustle” as the kids say).
I called it the Bulls & Bears Press. It began as a short 3-page, weekly newsletter that was sent to members of the investment club. I e-mailed it out for a couple of weeks before finding out that it was a hit. Students had been taking the time to read it and send it to their friends. Some even reached out asking to write an article for the next issue.
The trend continued.
Several months later, I had an epiphany: If students at Carnegie Mellon found value in reading it, why not students at other schools?
I reached out to a friend who ran a student finance organization at the University of Pittsburgh down the street. Did she want to send the newsletter to the members of her organization? Yes. Did she want to contribute an article or two? Yes. Could I interview her for an upcoming issue? Yes.
I was on to something…
FLOW
Last month, I published my first essay on an organic approach to organizations (read: here). I talked about the power of aligning with the flow of what’s happening in your organization and the world. I wrote about the ways we interrupt flow by pushing and blocking it. I talked about the importance of trust and staying open. All of this in the name of unlocking a new level of vitality, creativity, and results in your organization. The organic approach has that kind of power.
I want to go deeper into a particular aspect of this approach. Specifically, I want to explore with you the idea that you don’t need to convince, persuade, or coax anyone into buying your products or services. In other words, it’s the idea that you don’t need to sell. Your business can succeed without it.
Skeptical? Good.
First, it’s important that we get clear on what selling is. What comes to mind when you think of sales? Maybe the stereotypical used car salesman. Or worse, sitting in a room for a timeshare presentation (like in this South Park episode). Or maybe you’ve had some great sales experiences — someone selling you something that ended up really improving your life.
At the most fundamental level, sales is simply the other side of buying. When a transaction is complete, someone has bought and someone has sold.
But what I’m referring to as sales is all the other stuff that comes with it. The world of convincing, persuading, and coaxing.
Sales is grabby. It attempts to force an outcome. “Just imagine how much better your life will be when you buy my product.” “You will look so much more beautiful in our makeup.” “You’ll feel like a real man if you use our shampoo.”
Sales is the source of many of the complaints about capitalism.
The bottom line about sales is that it is inauthentic. It’s about hitting a quota, getting paid commission, growing the company, or being the #1 selling brand in your niche. It’s not about being true to you and your organization.
A quick example: The stereotypical businessperson will look out into the marketplace and find an opportunity to make money. Maybe there is a coffeeshop on every corner, except one. So they find investors and sell them on the opportunity. They persuade people to work for them. They convince customers to stop by. And the shop may even make some money over time. But is that what they want to do? Is it authentic? Do they even like coffee?
The same inauthentic phenomenon at greater complexity happens all the time in the corporate world. Launching new products or services, opening new offices, contracting with suppliers, taking on investors — all in the name of sales or growth or profitability — but never pausing to see if it’s actually a fit for them and their organization.
The results are these behemoth inauthentic organizations that you see all around you. Companies that will sell anything regardless of what is true for them. They probably don’t even know what’s true for them so external is their focus (“Where’s the next financial opportunity?”) — and when they look internally, they find only dollar signs, not a soul with a truth and a perspective.
They’re lost.
And lost organizations need to sell, push, grab, and force their way to keep going. There’s no heart or soul — the natural engine of life and of all its aspects, including business.
When a business choice is authentic it is true to you and your organization. It is a fit, a match. It is an expression of something deep and true and real.
It’s probably obvious how this authenticity is needed in other areas of life. How you choose where to live or who to marry or what principles and values drive your life. But it’s just as true in business — that depth and authenticity are necessary.
How do you know if something is true to you and your organization? It has the quality, tone, and feel of truth, of alignment. It flows. It takes awareness and attentiveness to really know what’s true. It takes discipline. (It’s also how doing business becomes a spiritual practice. But that’s a story for another day.)
SHARING
The Bulls & Bears Press didn’t start to grow because I “sold” it. It grew because there was passion and value to share. It was an authentic expression of who I was at the time.
That experience and many others that followed taught me that I didn’t have to sell. I didn’t need to persuade or convince people. (And if I felt like I did then I was working for the wrong company.)
I stopped being interested in sales and started being interested in partnership.
Partnerships that supported the visions of the people involved. I looked for win/win relationships. I looked for that place of overlap between what I was up to and what others were up to. I found the space between their dreams and mine.
When you share what you are passionate about — where your heart and soul are — then partnerships happen naturally.
When it’s authentic, when it’s true — that’s not selling — that’s sharing. You are sharing yourself, what you believe in, and what you stand for.
But isn’t this just sales by another name?
I understand if it seems that way but consider that I’m talking about a subtle but important distinction. The distance between the two maybe inches wide, but it’s a mile deep.
Have you ever met someone who was really passionate about their work? Their actions may look the same as other people. They both sit down for meetings, send e-mails, make phone calls, create presentations, and take lunch breaks. They may even work the same amount of hours. So what’s the difference?
It’s kind of hard to put your finger on, isn’t it? Because it lives in the realm of feeling or energy or context. It lives in the realm of flow. And even if on some level, the actions seem to look the same, they are not. An action aligned with flow produces a different kind of result, attracts a different kind of customer, and creates a different kind of work environment.
It’s the difference between selling and sharing.
Selling forces, sharing allows. Selling coaxes, sharing partners. Selling convinces, sharing shares. (I know it’s not proper English, but you get the idea, right?)
Selling creates fragmented companies.
Organizations have had to create their own sales departments to hone the skills of pushing their products. It’s something separate from the core of the business. You do your work and then you have to sell it.
But from the organic perspective they are one thing. There’s no sales department.
Doing-and-sharing is one continuous movement of the business. They naturally go hand-in-hand. They are both part of the process of the business itself — completely integrated.
When you stop putting energy into selling, you free up energy to invest back into your organization — into partnerships or into a better quality service or product — into something you don’t need to convince people to buy.
GROWTH
Now this may sound like a nice idea, but what does it actually look like? What’s the organic approach to growth?
Well, it stands on the foundation of everything we’ve talked about so far. The foundation of flow, authenticity, sharing, and partnership. And it consists of three pillars: Finding your people, places, and movement.
Find your people. Find the people that are a match to you and your organization. The people who are authentically interested in what you are up to. The ones who most value it. The ones who want to support it as customers, investors, partners, or employees. This is different than just whoever you can convince to buy your product. Find your people, not just people. Regardless of what business you’re in, your people is not “everyone.”
After Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1996, did the company grow because he hired better salespeople? Of course not. It grew because the way that Steve is (and the way that Apple is when he is there) naturally creates advocates. He knew how to find his people. Like his campaign of the following year: “Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently…”
You can steal a page out of his book: Don’t just find customers, find advocates.
Find your places. Find those places where you can most be yourself and have that valued. A certain website or physical location or community. Physical and digital venues that are a match to you and your organization. When you find your people (clients, partners, etc.), go there. That’s not “selling,” that’s meeting them where they are. That may mean setting up a storefront in San Francisco or starting a TikTok account. It’s different than going wherever people are or wherever you can setup shop.
Find your movement. Stand for something. Stand for something that makes a difference — that moves the world forward. Stand for something with your products and services. Something that is authentic and true to you and your organization. And join a movement that is a match to that. If there isn’t a movement, then start one. Some of the fastest growing organizations have been the ones that stood for something when no one else would. If you can’t find something to stand for then you’re probably in the wrong business.
Those are the 3 pillars of organic growth. There’s actually one more important pillar, but first I want to clarify something.
In the business world, “organic growth” is typically used to mean growth without taking big outside investment and without mergers and acquisitions. It’s growth that is naturally fueled by the business itself. If it’s not obvious already, I’m using “organic” in a different way. I’m using it to mean what is deeply authentic and a match to you and your organization. That may mean taking outside investment or not. That may mean mergers and acquisitions or not. That may mean rapid growth or not. Hopefully that’s clear.
There’s one more important pillar and in my mind it underlies the others. It’s this:
Have a damn good product or service.
Pour your heart and soul into what you create. Have it be true and real and deep and meaningful. Have it be an expression of yourself. Have it be great.
To quote the comedian Steve Martin, “Be so good they can’t ignore you.”
A NEW ART
So what happened to the Bulls & Bears Press?
Not long after the second university joined, I incorporated the company. I solidified our team. We launched a website. We polished up the newsletter. We expanded to 5 schools then 10 then 20.
Through word of mouth, advertisers eventually came knocking. We were the only newsletter that reached directly to undergraduates interested in business and finance. They wanted to be a part of it.
By the time I graduated, we had grown into a multinational financial publication distributed to tens of thousands of students across 70+ universities including Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, the National University of Singapore, the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, and the University of Sydney. We were the mostly widely distributed collegiate publication at the time. And we had fun doing it. We even made enough profit that I was able to pay off a substantial chunk of my student loan debt.
I learned a lot from the experience, but more than anything I learned that an authentic passion for something can lead to exciting business opportunities. The project attracted enthusiastic students, interested advertisers, and committed partners. Almost effortlessly.
It was my first lesson in the art of not selling.
THE SELF
My intention in writing this was to unstuck you from “selling.” To free you from the burden of having to push, force, and grab customers. To translate that effort into quality, partnership, and creativity.
When you look for your people, your places, and your movement, there is a new kind of intentionality, and it’s not the intention of more sales or profit or growth (though those happen). It’s the intention of authenticity, of a match to you and your organization. You could call it a match to the “self” of your organization.
Just like you, your organization has a self. It is a complex and evolving network, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are actions and choices that are true to that self and those that aren’t. When you nurture the self of your organization — when you express it, share it, put it out into the world — you naturally attract people who are a match to it. You naturally attract a loyal, committed kind of employee. You attract a passionate kind of customer. You attract an enthusiastic kind of investor and partner.
You create an ecosystem where the art of selling isn’t needed.
Just the art of being yourself.
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I’ve been putting this approach to work as a consultant for over 5 years. I’ve partnered with executives and organizations to help them find their people, places, and movements. If this sounds like a match to you, then reach out to me. If not, then discover what’s true for you and your organization — that’s where the growth is.
