Is it wrong to sell what you love?
James Wright, CEO/Founder Zipline Technologies, Inc.
I am always impressed by the purists. The ones who will never sacrifice their morals, ethics, message, art, vision, no matter what the incentive or commercial offer. Selling out to Pepsi for the sake of making a little extra money, or in some cases a lot of extra money would never cross their minds. Movies are made about the ones who will never bend, and inspire millions for years to come with their persistence and will to overcome, despite excruciating pain and humiliation. We look to these martyrs as heroes, as we should. Keeping one’s values at the core of everything we do is the surest way to a restful night’s sleep.
On the other side of the coin, you have the sociopath. The one who goes into business, becomes a lawyer or politician or any other position that can garner great power. This person has little or no sense of guilt or conscience. They have no sense or right or wrong, only “what I need to do to get my way”. Martha Stout, Ph.d. and author of “The Sociopath Next Door”, states that one in twenty seven people you meet in society is a sociopath. We have all met or worked for the person who relentlessly drives us and uses us to attain their end goal. These people will sell us out for higher gain without blinking an eye. Many of the world’s tech companies are run by sociopaths, as they are trying to automate everything with AI. Think through the process whereby all decisions can made with ‘Spock-like’ logic via a machine. Why should we ever allow guilt or emotion to get in the way of a rational decision? This is the thinking of sociopaths…no right or wrong ethically, just the logic of profit or productivity.
We tend to think of salespeople as sociopaths, as if it is simply in their best interest to take money out of our pockets so they can put it into theirs. But the reality is that the best salespeople have a great deal of empathy, and work hard to understand their customers’ needs. The problem with the assumption that sales is for sociopaths is that every artist and creative entrepreneur needs to also make a living. In fact, it makes sense that creative people are more humble, as they are in the ‘business’ of connecting deeper meaning and passion to the physical form. It is therefore perhaps counterintuitive for Silicon Valley to create software/AI products for this important demographic in our society. Companies like Amazon can use AI to replace human interaction, as they sell consumables where the buyer depends on delivery and price as their key buying metrics. In a business where emotion is what matters, AI cannot and should not replicate it. People buy from people in this business. You typically don’t buy a piece of art without understanding the artist. For this reason, despite discomfort around sales or selling, artists and creative entrepreneurs must become more adept at selling.
One last area of concern will be the effects that AI brings to the workforce. Companies such as Facebook are already discussing the Minimum Viable Income, as so many workers will be leaving the workforce and will face challenges in transplanting their existing skills to be useful in the new economy. Many of these unemployed workers will decide to follow what they truly love and enjoy, which could be to start potting, painting, writing, or taking photographs. Many of these individuals will be taking the skills they learned in the corporate world to their newly found hobby. And they will sell their products, as a good salesperson is really a story teller. And people buy stories. They will have had years of training and selling experience. The artists and artisans that have been perfecting their craft for years may be left out in the cold, waiting for someone to visit their booth or walk into their gallery cold.
If our society is to have an inkling of humanity woven within our products and services, it will be due to the efforts of the artisans of this world that create unique, special products that were derived from emotion and passion. For this reason, creative entrepreneurs do need to sell, and they need to adopt products that can help them sell. Creative entrepreneurs need to learn to sell and perfect their so called “pitch” to prepare for the upcoming influx of other competitive creative entrepreneurs into their world. Where delivery times and convenience are first in line, it is time for creative entrepreneurs to prepare for the boom that will become an appreciation for the unique and the human. Like vinyl, all good things do come back again.
In the words of the Roman Genereal Vegetius “Igitur qui desiderata pacem, praeparet vellum”, “If you want peace, prepare for war”. Well…creative entrepreneurs, NOW is the time to prepare yourself for the upcoming AI revolution and the influx of hungry new artisans. Our future depends on it.
