512: The Sales & Marketing Grind

Everybody. This is Steli Efti. And this is Heaton Shah. And today, on the startup chat, Steli is prodding me to talk about a tweet, and this tweet was talking about how sales and marketing is a grind. Mhmm. I think we like talking about more than just sales and marketing. We just life, and hopefully, while we're doing that, provide a lot of value to people. The world's best business podcast. Oh. Shit. Oh, shit. We got it. For people trying to get shit and done. Yeah. We don't wanna give you feedback. That's bullshit. And we want you to do your best. And you have to do the same thing over and over and over again, and you might even quit before you hit gold. So what thoughts did it spur for you? Well, first, let me actually read the tweet. Right? Yeah. Go for it. I definitely butchered it. So the most difficult part of sales and marketing is getting used to the grind. Doing the same set of things over and over and over again, sometimes with such mediocre results that you think about giving up right before striking gold. So I like that tweet because I think there's there's a kernel of truth in there, but there's also there are parts of me that instantly recognize the truth in this or my truth in this, but there's also part of me that wanna disagree. And then there's a immediate question that I have once in a while when you tweet, which is what prompted this? Like, I literally go, I wonder what prompted this. Probably something interesting. You know? I have to remember to ask him. Ask him next time I talk to him. So let's start the episode with that. I'll tell you what I think about this. But first, what made you tweak this? Like, what prompted this tweet this thought? Yeah. I think especially with sales and marketing, people look for sort of the silver bullet. And, you know, the silver bullet is like the one thing you can do and everything's all taken care of. What I've noticed for sales and marketing is it's not that. And so what prompted it is, like, nothing, like, super in particular one event or anything like that. But I was just thinking why why a lot of people have a hard time with sales and marketing While, let's say, with engineering or design or even product, they might not have as hard of a time. And one of the reasons that I sort of one conclusion I came to is like you're doing the same thing over and over again. When it comes to some of these other areas like engineering or product or design, the repetition is not the same. You're not necessarily doing the same thing over and over again and likely seeing mediocre results. You have a tangible like feeling of progress and momentum that can happen in those scenarios. While …