All of the business of selling apps and selling subscriptions is extremely cruelly misunderstood, including by me.
If you look at the very best presidents, the most effective presidents, they were always decent salespeople. Ronald Reagan was an extremely effective salesman, very tuned to the people he was selling to, very clear in what he was selling, very resilient and buoyant.
My marks were always bad, and I was a bad influence on other children, so they would explain to my mother that they could retain me only by being partial towards me, and so I should offer to leave the school myself. I would barely get 40-50% and was also extremely naughty.
Before that I had largely thought of selling as just a way of making a living for myself. I had dreaded to go in to see people, for fear I was making a nuisance of myself. But now I was inspired! I resolved right then to dedicate the rest of my selling career to this principle: finding out what people want, and helping them get it.
The left is really good at selling bad ideas and the right is really bad at selling good ideas.
When I watch a romantic comedy, I feel like they're selling something that doesn't exist. Two beautiful, but extremely unpleasant, people are terrible to each other for an hour, accidentally kiss, then decide to like each other during an extremely vague montage. That isn't how people fall in love.
I don't think I'm ugly per se, but on bad days, I have been told that I look like the monster from 'The Hills Have Eyes.' That was extremely confidence-shattering, so I try to take care of myself.
I do voiceovers, but being on-camera and selling something? I wasn't really interested. And then I thought, well, wait a minute. Everybody's selling something. When you turn on the tube... And then if you go to Europe or Asia, everyone is selling something. All the guys that don't want to be seen selling something here are selling something there. So I thought what the hell?
I'm always happy when I hear about people selling records or selling books or selling movies. It makes me proud of them.
The daily quota I've set for myself is 500 words or approximately a page and a half double-spaced. Which isn't much, except that I'm extremely slow, extremely meticulous. 'Le mot juste' haunts me. On a good day, I will finally secrete the 500th word at about 5 o'clock, and I'll reward myself by going to Housing Works Bookstore to read.
I don't want to be on the other side of the table from the customer. I was never selling anything that I didn't believe in myself or use myself.
Because Comic Con in San Diego is crazy, and it's very commercialized, and it's corporate, and it's all about money and selling, selling, selling... I think people want to go to smaller, specialized cons.
Among other things, I use a Samsung mobile phone, a very bad quality video camera, and an old Olympus with extremely bad Sigma lenses.
Selling is the most important skill as an entrepreneur. I'm not talking so much about selling a product so much as selling yourself, team, and deals.
I enjoy selling my music. I don't enjoy selling myself.
The Democrats are very bad at selling their own product. The Republicans are geniuses at it. And I've said it before, a bad product well apologized for is superior in this country to a good product.