Kevin Vogelsang: What You Need to Sell Your Idea: Passion.

If you’re someone with ideas, here’s one of the first lessons you will need to learn:  the world does not care at all about your ideas.  In fact, you should go ahead and assume the world hates you and your ideas.

Consequently, by signing up to be a startup founder, you’ve agreed to work in sales for your company.  But you have to be more than that, you have to be an absolute champion for your company.  You have to sell team members, investors, suppliers, customers, even your parents on the idea and make them believe that this is a real opportunity.  You have to change the way they think about what you’re doing.

Most of the founders I’ve met aren’t “salesman” and don’t have a lot of experience selling.  And despite what engineers like to think, selling is a real skill that an individual gains expertise in over time.  However, you don’t need years of experience to be good at selling. If you really want to get started selling, I think you only need one thing: passion.

 People enjoy being around and seeing people that are passionate about what they do. Everyone wants something to feel strongly about, and everyone is secretly searching for passion.   They want to feel the energy that passion provides.

If you love what you’re doing and really want to make it real, that energy and desire comes out.  You might not be the best at communicating it just yet, but you’ll get people’s attention, and they’ll listen.  And if you are truly passionate, they’ll feel that energy.  And maybe, just maybe, that energy will change the way they think by a small amount.  But that small bit is one more person starting to believe in what you’re doing.  And if you share your energy constantly all the time, one by one, you’ll convert people to your way of thinking.

I’m a huge proponent of building something you personally want.  You are your customer and you know what you want.  You’ll also benefit from the power of personal desire.  You’ll truly feel strongly about what you’re doing.  You’ll then have genuine passion.  To get started selling, you just need to let that passion, that strong desire, show. 

Right now, I’m championing a concept that will soon enough be a reality—Vogel Labs.  Vogel Labs is a working community of people passionate about what they’re doing; it’s the working environment that I want and need.  But, it’s more than just a community workspace full of good people.  Vogel Labs will also be a platform for building Boston’s greater entrepreneurial community; Vogel Labs is going to help build the entrepreneurial ecosystem that I want.  And while these are things that I want, I know other people secretly (or not so secretly) want them as well. 

People will constantly put up hurdles between you and what you want.  The world will resist.  But if you pursue intelligently and passionately, eventually, you’ll win.

Kevin Vogelsang is a writer and entrepreneur focused on developing technology for identifying experts that share their knowledge online. He’s also currently building Vogel Labs, a community workspace filled with all the intangibles that an entrepreneur needs to do big things.  He is the author of 10 Powerful Personas and blogs at KevinVogelsang.com.  Follow him on Twitter @KevinVogelsang.

Photo Credit: PinkMoose on Flickr