The following article is written by Clinton Skakun:
Wealth File #8 of T. Harv Eker’s book Secrets of the Millionaire Mind states that “Rich people are willing to promote themselves and their value. Poor people think negatively about sales and promotion.” People who resent promoting the value they have to offer are usually broke. Why? Because every product or business or idea or movement will never get oxygen unless people hear about them first.
Promotion(especially self promotion) is something that is relatively looked down upon amongst the middle-class. Extremely wealthy billionaires, personal brands and entrepreneurs like Richard Branson are often given titles like “shameless self promoter”. Though they’d compare their paycheck with yours’ any day of the week. Do you think there would be a profound difference?
“People who have issues with selling and promotion are usually broke.” – T. Harv Eker
What’s the difference between these shameless self promoters(who are ironically some of the biggest givers, and don’t find shame in that either) and the rest of the world, who wouldn’t dare stick their necks out and chance looking “un-cool”? Rich people are shameless about their promotion because (1) they believe in what they have to offer, and (2) they believe in themselves–two key ingredients. It’s fact that most people who hate sales usually do so because they either don’t fully believe in the value they have to over or don’t believe in themselves, or both. The common perception is that, if you’re a self-respecting human being, sales is below you. A good question to ask though: If you’re broke, and you think sales is such a dirty game, what makes you more special than people who have made billions from it? More importantly, they’ve changed lives, history and society. The whole idea that selling is “dirty” is basically a poor man’s point of view that parallels with “the dirty lucre” mentality, which are both somewhat common among the middle-class thinkers. It’s a universal truth that you can’t give something you don’t have(like money) and it’s become a ever increasing reality that you can’t make real money if you can’t sell.
Promotion is not strictly an exchange-for-money game. Ideas, people(such as political or organizational leaders), innovation, a paradigm shift, etc etc all need to be promoted before they gain support. Think of some of the greatest inventions and changes in the past five-hundred years. Things like the telephone, automobile, computers, printing press. Without promotion ideas stay hidden, improvements stay in the back of the employee’s mind and breakthroughs are delayed. Ideas don’t mean a thing unless people know about them. The term Best-Selling doesn’t necessarily mean Best-Writing, the author needs to know how to sell him or her self–otherwise it’s just another book collecting dust. Maybe it’s not a coincidence that the our favorite books, movies, etc are also the best promoted.
It’s not by chance that some of the wealthiest people are salespeople, people who could communicate value to another party. Who can sell others on their idea.
Selling and promotion may not be such a narrow field as you thought. Almost anyone who achieves anything, makes more money, changes more lives, leads instead of follows is a promoter. Everyone from pastors to car salesmen to hookers(however illegally) are in this field called sales/promotion. The only people who don’t promote are followers, people who do what they are told and are too afraid to speak out. The fearful never promote.
“Rich people are usually leaders, all leaders are great promoters. Leaders earn a heck of a lot more than followers.” – T. Harv Eker
Are you interested in getting a long with people or getting others to accept you? Learn to be persuasive. Do you want to join the top 10% in your company? Learn to sell with passion and enthusiasm. Are you trying to get the CEO in your company to improve a certain aspect of the company that could save a lot of money? Learn to be a promoter of your ideas. Are you trying to motivate a team of people? Sell a vision!
Richard Branson photo found at Today’s Marketing
Clinton Skakun is a 19 year old entrepreneur who writes at ClintonSkakun.com, a blog dedicated to best business practices and personal growth principles. You can connect with Clinton on Twitter or contact him directly at ClintonSkakun.com
Thanks Glenn for having me on your blog. It really helps my blog out as well:)
thank you for this post! i fear i have a poor way of thinking, but twitter and blogging helps force me to promote myself online. I just need to carry that over into my life. I like this line especially, “The only people who don’t promote are followers”
[...] podcast is actually based on a guest post I wrote, Every One Promotes, a few months ago at Glenn Danker’s [...]
Wealth building is a very interesting job. everyone want to have some financial freedom.-.~