The "Hell Yes" Rule

Getting out of "Sell Product Mode", learning to enjoy sales

Here’s a paradox for you:

It’s hard to sell your product when you’re focused on selling your product.

Some things in life behave like this. Happiness, for example, is hard to find if you’re looking for it.

And just like the cottage industry of “happiness experts,” there’s an entire world of people focused on helping founders sell their product better.

The problem is that when you’re focused on selling your product, you make your life really difficult.

Here’s why.

Your prospective buyer doesn’t care about your product. And it’s really freakin’ hard to convince them to care about your product.

Because your buyer has shit to do. They care about themselves. Your product is not the main character in their story - they are the main character in their story.

So when you talk about your product, you wind up speaking in a different language than your buyer.

And this is why the “product-focused” sales motion that founders are taught sucks. It’s designed around your product rather than what your buyer is trying to accomplish. It leads to:

• Spammy sales outreach

• Uncomfortable discovery calls where you’re fishing for pain points

• Broad targeting to anyone who might potentially benefit from your product (leading to messaging that resonates with nobody)

• Low conversion rates

• Long sales cycles

• Low pricing

No wonder founders hate sales.

Instead, founders need to design their sales process around specific buyers and what they’re trying to accomplish. I’ve learned to *love* sales by doing this, and I’ve gotten much better at it too.

Which brings me to the “Hell Yes” Rule.

The “Hell Yes” Rule

When you’re explicitly focused on one specific customer (see: the One-Customer Rule), you can design a sales process that makes that specific person say “Hell Yes” at every stage.

• “Hell Yes” Outreach: Focused on what they’re trying to accomplish, rather than selling our product. When they see it in their inbox, they say, “whoa - I never respond to cold emails but I HAD to respond…”

• “Hell Yes” Demo: Something that’s so helpful, potential buyers refer other potential buyers before they purchase

• “Hell Yes” Offer: A “get started” package they find so wildly awesome they can’t say no to it

• “Hell Yes” Customer Experience: An onboarding experience that’s so helpful they tell everyone they know about it

“Hell Yes” is the aspiration - and when you’re focused on designing around a specific buyer (rather than a bunch of potential buyers), it’s actually pretty easy to do.

Escape “Sell Product Mode” and you’ll boost every metric that matters. And you’ll learn to love - or at least “not hate” - sales.