Let’s get something out of the way right now. Yes, there are some lying, sleazy, slimy, unethical, pushy, cutthroat, rude, lazy, and obnoxious people in sales. There are some people who are just plain jerks and sociopaths who will stop at nothing to make that sale. I’m sure you’ve got your own stories to substantiate this stereotype. However, not all people in sales functions are like this; just like any other stereotype. I’m sure you can think of any profession and find people who fit the negative adjectives listed above. In my own experience, I’ve met a good share of jerks, idiots, and slime balls in all walks of life. People are going to act in all sorts of ways, especially when money is concerned. Let’s stop maligning sales.

To be a successful entrepreneur, you need to convince people to give you all sorts of things in exchange for something. Money in exchange for a good or service is at the top of the list, but it doesn’t stop there. You need people to believe in you, your skills, your ideas, your plans, and your business. You need people to understand what you do, who you are, and what your business or plan is all about. You need people to trust you. You need to form relationships and partnerships. All of this is achieved by being willing and able to sell.

Even if you’re an introvert like me, you must be able to connect with others, inform them, and, convince them to sign on to what you’ve got. You must be able to talk to strangers and make that first move, even if the thought makes you break out in a cold sweat. This one of the hard truths of having a business: you need to hustle.

Does this mean you need to turn your back on your principles, ethics, religion, etc? For goodness’ sake, no! Learning about sales doesn’t mean selling your soul and selling out your values in exchange for a buck. Just as we covered the fact that you will need to learn new things to keep your business running, this is just one more thing you need to learn. People out there, hopefully, want and need what you’ve got. That’s why you decided to go into business in the first place. Did you really expect people to just show up and hand over cash without a little information or convincing?

Think about how you buy things and what makes an ideal buying experience for you. You like being able to find something that fits your needs or solves a problem without it being a major ordeal to get that information. You like being able to learn about all things you’re going to get from that good or service and how it will benefit your life. You appreciate having your questions answered and needs understood. You like it when someone cares about helping you. This is what you can do for your clients when you sell and it can be wonderful for everyone involved.

If you’ve had a sales job in the past and it left you cold or made you realize you lack the skills to make a living doing it, I’m here to tell you this is going to be different. Just like parents will often say it’s different when it’s your own child, selling for your own business is the same way. You are in control of everything. The volume you need to sell, what you’re selling, the way you sell, and even your rewards for selling are all at your decision. You pick the venues and methods so you shouldn’t be in a place where this feels unnatural or unethical.

As an entrepreneur, your passion makes it much easier to sell. You should believe in and trust your products or services. You should love what you have to give or do for people. You should be excited about and thrilled to share your business with others. This can carry you a long way towards feeling good about selling. Of course, you still need to be effective or the lights don’t get to stay on or checks bounce, but that’s true for any job. The more you learn about how to sell, the more tools you can use and experiment with, which can also be a lot of fun. If you’re struggling with your belief in yourself or company, learning to sell can also help you figure out and fix what’s troubling you.

In the end, this is a chance to share the business you’re passionate about. Being effective at sales means more people get to share in that experience and benefit from what you have to offer. It also means you have control over your life and future in a way you’ve never had before. Sales isn’t a dirty word. It’s exciting liberation.

Even if you never say it, you live ‘that’s not my job’ most of the time. If your company has other people working there or other departments you are not a part of, you are quite comfortable that there are a number of functions that are not your job.

As an entrepreneur, every function of the business is yours to deal with. Of course, you may have an accountant who checks in on your books once a quarter and helps you with taxes or the lawyer friend you can call on to draft a contract or give advice. You may hire someone to build your website and enlist in the help of a marketing coach. Hiring someone with more expertise can be vital to your business’ survival. However, just because you get someone else to do these things doesn’t mean you were free from the decision. It is still your job to make sure you have sound accounting records, legal business practices, a decent website, and a means of attracting new clients, to name just a few of a business’ needs.

If you have been comfortable in a job where you really didn’t need to concern yourself with most of the aspects of a business, it can be a real challenge when you are suddenly required to deal with everything. “I don’t know. I never thought about that,” becomes a starting point for a lot of learning instead of a dismissive shrug that ends a conversation. If you want to grow and maintain a business, you need to be comfortable with the fact you need to grow and maintain your mind. You need to grow and maintain your knowledge. Even if you hire others to take care of things for you in some places, you will still need a basic understanding in order to make appropriate decisions.

Don’t let this scare you. It’s not as dreadfully dull and scary as it may seem. Sure, you can expect some areas of business to be boring or tedious, but there is a lot of fun to be had as well. If you’ve ever complained about having a job that was boring, unchallenging, or just stagnant because you never got to learn anything new, taking on a business of your own blows that away almost immediately. You get to learn about worlds of information you never experienced before. You get to meet all sorts of new people your old job would have never let you cross paths with, never mind sitting down for a real conversation. You are free to grow.

You can still delegate as your business grows and that will be something you will need to be good at when the time comes. This still means you need to know what’s going on and be able to understand what others are doing to your business. Think about any job you’ve had where it seemed like the boss or owner had no idea what was going on. Remember how out of touch and clueless you thought that person was or is? Don’t let that be you. Even if you are no longer part of the daily production or the grittiest details, everything is still yours to know and care about. Success comes from banishing “that’s not my job” from your life.

So, what does this have to do with being more suited to entrepreneurship, especially when ‘perseverance,’ ‘tenacity,’ and ‘follow-through’ are on so many ‘qualities of an entrepreneur’ lists?

The thing is, these qualities aren’t bad and have helped many people’s careers take off. It’s the belief that failure is the worst thing that can happen to you and you must never stoop so low as to walk away from something that causes the problem. As we addressed in the first of the series, being an entrepreneur means things aren’t always certain. Failure is always an option on the table. How many stories about entrepreneurs have you heard that include the list of ideas that didn’t work or pan out? It’s not odd at all to have a company be one of a string of ventures that have come and gone.

A company closing down or moving on isn’t necessarily failure. Having an exit strategy is part of making solid business plans and decisions. In a world that preaches changing jobs too often or losing a job as being a sign of a possible character flaw or moral failing, it is hard to understand that businesses have a life cycle. In the past, you may have never been exposed to this side of company decisions. As an entrepreneur, all decisions are largely, in not entirely, yours to make and this is one of them. You need to know when and how to call it quits.

On a smaller scale, you need to be able to recognize when an idea, product, or strategy isn’t working out or needs to be retired. Pouring in time, money, resources, and good will into something that doesn’t return enough value is silly. You need to be honest about the results you are getting and equally honest about what needs to be done about it. Having a “never quit” attitude can cause you to lose all those things you put into the idea.

Being able to walk away is only good if you get something out of the experience. Allow yourself the freedom to stop a bad situation and walk away, but pause to examine it closely. Finding out why and how something went wrong can take some of the sting out of a bad decision if you know what you are going to do better or different tomorrow. As entrepreneur, you probably have other great or exciting ideas you want to try. Learning and growing from mistakes and having the wisdom to know when to stop makes it easier to give those other ideas a chance to be born.

Yet, we look for a word or thought to describe just how it is that a person can leave a ‘good, stable job’ and jump into something as risky as starting a business of their own. What we see in entrepreneurs is not impulsiveness or the ability to take a chance at any wild odds: instead, it is comfort with a higher level of uncertainty.

Certainty is an odd thing. Being certain indicates something is sure and without a doubt. People generally like certainty, along with predictability and stability. Again, there is nothing wrong with any of these things and you can be comfortable with uncertainty while being a predictable and stable person.

One hard part with certainty is that it’s the known thing and that is far less scary than an unknown quantity. Think about how long you stayed at a bad job, or at least a job that just wasn’t doing anything for you anymore. Now, think about why you stuck it out for so long. Of course, there are always practical matters to consider, such having income to take care of responsibilities, but how much of your remaining there was due to it being easier to stay compared to hunting down and moving on something new?

There is a benefit to certainty: we know how things work, or least how they work most of the time. At most jobs, you have pretty solid knowledge about your schedule, the rate and frequency of pay, what your tasks are, how things function, and what the culture is like. Even in highly variable jobs such as straight commission sales, many medical professions, or on-call situations, you know the set up. It’s all part of the deal you signed on for.

Now, I know there are people out there who may be thinking “Not my job! My job is full of randomness and insanity,” even then there is a level of certainty. You know it’s going to be crazy and unpleasantly difficult. The badness is the known quantity.

When it comes to being an entrepreneur, there are many elements where things are uncertain. Getting and maintaining work, setting up competitive prices, launching products and ideas at the right time, developing effective marketing strategies, and managing expenses while correctly spending enough money are all uncertain and challenging aspects of being an entrepreneur.

Uncertainly also lies in the often erratic nature of schedules, pay, and how many people you will see that day. . Depending on what you do, you may be a ‘culture’ of one. You may spend days working 18 hours at a shot or set up a system that requires you to actually ‘work’ just a handful of hours each week to make ends meet. You might be part of a project that will provide you income for the next ten months when, just a few weeks ago, you were scrabbling for jobs and living hand to mouth. You might have bursts of being around people constantly or have a set up where everything is online and you are rarely in the same zip code as your clients.

Yet, there is a more human side to the matter of uncertainty. When you launch a business, you are putting yourself and your ideas out there and are facing real rejection. You need to convince people to sign on to you, your products, your business, and your ideas. It is the daily effort of making people believe in you and that can be a very uncertain thing. When you’re on your own, there is always the possibility looming over your head of having to call it quits before you want to. There is always the thought that your shingle may not be hanging out next year, based on either your decisions or just random events.

Taking management business decisions out of the mix, most people working for others know what they need to do to keep their job. The rules and requirements are laid out and, if adhered to, a person can keep clocking in each day. Entrepreneurs don’t usually have that comfort.

Everyone finds and faces different challenges when it comes to adjusting to more unknown quantities in your working life. In the end, to be happy as an entrepreneur, you need to be willing and able to deal with uncertainty that is greater than what you may have experienced in other lines of work.

If you do a search for the ‘qualities of an entrepreneur’ you will find some very good lists. Time management, perseverance, willing to think outside of the box, and an openness to change will find their ways on these lists along with a strong drive to succeed, highly motivated, and the ability to get results, among many other traits.

At first glance, all of these qualities make sense. You need to be all of these things to be a successful entrepreneur, but these are the same traits of just about any successful person or top performer in any position you can think of.

Do you want to be the top salesperson? Having perseverance and being highly motivated will help you get there. Do you want to be an excellent teacher? Strong time management skills and a willingness to think outside of the box will do good things for you. These lists of skills are part of being success in general, but not exclusive to being a success as an entrepreneur. It’s a different animal.

If you want to take on entrepreneurship, here are four specific things you need to have or acquire to make making it happen a little easier:

• Willingness to accept high levels of uncertainty.
• Willingness to accept ‘failure’ and walk away.
• Free from the “that’s not my job” mentality and willing to wear all the hats as needed.
• Willing and able to sell.

The next four articles will discuss each of these traits in detail. For now, think about these things and think about your life. Pay attention to your reactions to each statement. These internal clues will help you decide if you want to do move forward with being on your own or not.

It’s also good to know that entrepreneurship is something that can happen at any time in your life. Age, experience, marital status, children or no children, economic status, and other aspects can be factors to consider, but that is true for any job. While some can say being self employed, a freelancer, a consultant, etc is a way of life, it’s just a job in the end. Jobs come and go and jobs change. Jobs (and careers) are what you make of them.

This is not about talking fast or not sharing to develop a closer relationship. This is more of a mental note for you to help keep from rambling or monopolizing a conversation. When you are speaking, you have about three to five sentences before a person’s focus starts to wander or they want to have their say.

Think of it as a back and forth exchange: 3-5 uninterrupted sentences for them and then 3-5 uninterrupted sentences for you, repeat as needed.

Here are some tips and things to think about:

1. What is the main point of what I’m talking or asking about?

Asking yourself this question before you speak will help you keep from rambling. It is the main reason you are having this conversation.

2. What do I want to gain or know by asking this question or saying this information?

This is basically the call to action aspect of your conversation. This works in business to help you clarify what you need to listen for. It also helps you think about how to formulate what you’re saying so your listener knows what you want.

3. Is this detail important?

If you’ve ever listened to someone tell a very long and rambling story then you’ll known this is not about lying or omitting significant information.

This is about deciding if that information is necessary for the listener to understand what you are talking about. Too many details make it harder for a listener to follow you because you’re creating so much information for that person to take in. It can also make for very boring conversation.

If people want more details, they’ll generally ask. This will help move the conversation.

The main thing is to be aware of what you are talking about and why. Remember to allow for a give and take in your conversations. Be respectful of a person’s attention span and time.

A new level of stress gets added when you don’t have any interest or desire to write about the subject at hand. If it’s tough enough to write when you enjoy the subject, what can be done when you can’t stand it?

You just suck it up and do it, or at least that’s what a lot of people say and there is some truth to that thought. Usually when you’re faced with the situation of writing about something miserably dull or obnoxious, there’s an element of ‘you will write about this or else’ factored in. Otherwise, the problem solves itself by not being written about. Yet in a world filled with obligations, there will always be miserable topics waiting for you to have to deal with them.

So in the interest of passing a class or keeping in good standing at a job, here are some ideas on how to write about things you can’t stand or don’t care about. Remember, just because you hate the subject doesn’t mean you’re released from the obligation to write well.

1. Pretend.

If you’re feeling truly apathetic about a subject, make up an opinion or an angle. Now, you need to be mindful about using this. This not the same as making up facts or pretending you are knowledgeable about something you’re not. This is for those times when, for example, you’re reading a book that bores you to tears and need to come up with an opinion. Give yourself permission to make up one and write as though you felt that way.

2. Be honest.

If you hate the subject or think it’s incredibly dull, then consider making the fact that you can’t stand the thing your subject. However, be warned this is very risky territory. You will need to make sure you can articulate exactly why you feel this way in order to have a solid piece of writing. This is a time when you need to write well because it can be a bold move to have a dissenting opinion. You need to have clear and well-developed ideas in order to survive this tactic because you’ll look like an ass if you don’t. Expect to get criticism if you chose this route and decide if it’s worth it.

3. Focus on a mechanical aspect.

This often works well if you need to review a particularly annoying book or other item. If the plot sucks, can you do something with the way the author uses imagery or symbolism? If the characters are boring or annoying, is there something you can do with the historical accuracy or uniqueness of the subject matter? Use something from the style to take the focus off the pain.

4. Focus on a single aspect. Can you find one topic or character or plot twist that is possible to work with? If it’s a subject you don’t care about, can you zero in on one thing that you find tolerable enough to work with?

5. Make sure you understand what you’re writing about.

Sometimes a topic sucks because you don’t know enough about the subject to get to the good stuff. Maybe this is the best the author has written to date? Maybe there is a really awesome back story about how this got written or published? Maybe there is much more information about this subject than you know and it will get more interesting once you get more details. Take the time to explore the subject beyond what you have or know.

6. Give yourself permission to not let this be your best work ever.

If all else fails, write the best you can with what you got to work with, but take the pressure off to some degree by accepting imperfection. Focus on meeting the requirements instead how much you’d rather not be writing this thing. This is one of those times were ‘good enough’ might need to be good enough.

In the end, facing and overcoming writing challenges ultimately makes you a better writer. With each piece you write, you find out a little bit more about yourself and what you can and can’t do, as well as what you will and won’t do – if you can help it. Again, just because you hate the subject is not a reason to write poorly. Use each time you write as an exercise in developing ideas and mastering the language.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

You’ve probably lost count of how many times you were asked this as a kid. Even as you get older, the question doesn’t quite go away. It may change shape and become “So, what do you do?” but it’s still the same thing.

Perhaps you were you like me, one of those kids that couldn’t answer this question? There were too many things you wanted to be and picking one… well, that’s impossible!

As an adult, I came to realize what I wanted to be had very little to do with a job title. Yet in a society that attributes identity to occupation, this can be rather disorienting. Who you are and what you do become synonymous, leaving you in a strange place where changing careers isn’t a fluid process and losing a job is devastating for more than financial reasons.

What you are takes center stage over who you are; without that ‘what’ the ‘who’ is now in the spotlight for maybe the first time. It’s an uncomfortable and unsettling experience that’s hard to name, making it a struggle to adapt to in a society so focused on occupation.

In my mid twenties, I started seeing this question in separate pieces that were far greater and much more specific than anything I was ever asked:

How did I define myself?

What was I capable of doing?

What type of work did I enjoy or never want to do again?

What was I interested in trying and exploring?

How did I want to earn money?

How did I want to spend my life?

As a kid, this was a static question with a static answer. You decided what you wanted to be and then you became it. After that, that’s what you did pretty much for the rest of your life. If this sounds overly simplistic, consider the number of people who wander through college or get a degree and then find out they hate the profession? Even more so, consider the number of people who are nearly crippled or blissfully liberated by the idea of changing careers. There is an undercurrent of the assumption that job you wanted in high school or maybe college should always fit. Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?

Now in my thirties, I realize I have a new answer to what I want to be when I grow up. I want to be happy. I want to love abundantly and be loved in return. I want to keep a sense of wonder, curiosity, and adventure. These are things that surpass occupation, but can be fed through work nonetheless. Jobs, even careers, come and go; what you do isn’t who you are.

Money really should not be the scorecard for your life, but it is a useful resource. I’ve heard a lot of commentary suggesting poverty is a moral failing and riches are a sign of superior character… and vice versa. Being a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ person is not dependant on your bank balance – good, bad, or otherwise. You can work hard and follow all the traditional rules and… make it big or still struggle. A lucky break or tragic event can happen to anyone at anytime. This is another reason why it is important to find out who you are without the definition of work or net worth.

When it comes to money, figure it out. Learn how to make it. Learn how to use it. If it helps to take the emotion out of money, think of what’s in your bank account like a hammer or a toaster: just another tool. After all, how many people splurge and pound a few extra nails or impulsively make a couple batches of toast?

In the end, the only things that matter are the things you let matter. You decide what you want to do and what you want to be. You define yourself.

8 tips for better writing that you can use right now:

1. Determine exactly what you need to respond to.

Right off the bat, you can clear up lousy writing by making sure you are actually giving the recipient what they need or were looking for. Understand what you are being asked for. After that, make sure what you wrote answers those questions or meets the request.

2. Sentences contain a subject and a predicate.

If you don’t remember elementary school: the subject is who or what the sentence is about while the predicate tells us something about the subject. Without either of these components, you have a fragment not a sentence. Sentence fragments don’t help the reader with anything. Plus, you look like an idiot for doing this.

A fragment has nothing to do with length. You can write a lot of words and still not have a sentence. You can have capital letters and punctuation and still not have a sentence. Check what you wrote. Make sure you can clearly identify the subject and predicate.

3. Read the thing you’ve written out loud (or quietly to yourself).

I can’t advocate this enough. This is the easiest way catch awkward sentences, dropped words, and incomplete thoughts, which contribute to lowering your credibility to your reader.

4. Watch the ‘tricky’ words.

If you are not sure, look up which word to use. Using the wrong version of these words is a quick way to make even the best writing lose creditability.

Here are a few examples:

Their: possessive pronoun

Example: We need to email their new lunch schedules before Monday’s event.

There: indicates a location in an abstract or more literal sense

Example: Put the boxes on the floor by the potted plant over there.

Example: There were nine candidates for the position in the lobby.

They’re: this is a contraction for they are.

Example: They’re a very competitive company when it comes to that market.

It’s: this is a contraction for it is.

Example: It’s going to rain soon.

Its: this is a possessive pronoun

Example: The printer needs its power cord replaced soon.

You’re: this is a contraction for you are

Example: You’re the best person for this project.

Your: this is a possessive pronoun

Example: Your request will be processed on Thursday.

5. Use spell check and grammar check with common sense.

Spell check and grammar check are life and credibility savers. They will catch and fix silly mistakes and hopeful attempts at spelling.

Yet, there is a dark side to these wonderful features. Sometimes in spell check’s attempt to be helpful, it will correct things like names or industry or company specific terms to what it thinks is correct. Grammar check will also suggest weird grammar corrections.

Make sure you pay attention to what they are suggesting and re-read the document after using these features.

6. Make use of ‘white space’ in your document.

Giant, dense blocks of text are harder to read. Breaking up the text into meaningful, relevant blocks can make it easier to read and let you bring emphasis to key points.

7. Watch the emotional load of the item.

Sarcasm and humor are difficult to convey in emails and other items because they also rely on nonverbal cues and tone of voice. How many times have you received an email or read something and questioned what the sender was trying to convey. Were they joking? Angry? Confused?

Now if you are upset, you can convey this in an email, but the question to now ask yourself is should you? It may be in your best interest to discuss the concern in person or perhaps call them.

If you do need to respond to something with an emotional charge, it is advisable to write a draft in Word or on paper first. This will give you a chance to write without the fear of accidently sending something you will regret. You can edit and rewrite or even let yourself calm down and revisit the matter later.

8. Write everything with the understanding this may be shared with people other than the intended recipient.

Emails get forwarded to anyone the receiver chooses and letters can be scanned, copied, and passed around. Be mindful when sharing sensitive or personal information. I have found it is best to be as professional as possible and to write as though this was going to be displayed on a billboard.