There’s only one way to make money. You have to sell something.
I’m serious. Every method of making money involves a sale of some kind.
Even your day job is selling. You probably don’t think about it like that, but it’s true. First, you had to sell yourself in the interview just in order to get the job. And every day you clock in, you’re selling your time to your employer.
Everything is sales.
Most people (especially people with morals) have an aversion to sales. Whether you’re the seller or you’re being sold to, sales can have a slimy, manipulative feeling. And there’s a reason for that.
Unfortunately, sales has a bad reputation because bad sales people exist. They make you feel like a target. Like they’re sizing you up, figuring out how to extract money from you, rather than helping you.
That feeling is real. It’s the reason so many people want nothing to do with sales, from either side.
Most of the time, this comes from a combination of bad sales experiences and an underlying assumption. There is a subconscious belief that sales is a zero-sum game. That, in order for someone to win, someone else has to lose.
If you’re a person with moral values, neither role feels acceptable, so you opt out.
Except you can’t opt out. Because everything is sales.
The truth is that the zero-sum belief is just flat out wrong. Ethical selling (the only kind worth doing) leaves both the buyer and the seller better off after the sale than before.
And once you understand how that works, selling stops feeling like manipulation and starts to just happen naturally.
The Unavoidable Truth
You might not realize it, but you’re already selling.
Every monetary transaction is some kind of sale. There is no version of making money that doesn’t involve a sale. That means it’s impossible to avoid selling, even if you work a non-sales position at your day job.
Everyone who collects a paycheck is engaging in sales. Even before you start your job, you have to get the job. That involves going into an interview and presenting an argument as to why you would be a valuable asset to the company. In essence you are selling yourself as a product to the company. If you’re successful, the company buys the employee (you) from you with an offer for employment. (Aka the hiring process)
So landing a job is a successful sale, but that’s not where the selling ends in this example. Because you get paid for every hour you show up to work. That’s a monetary transaction, so where is the sale? When you accepted the job offer, you agreed with your employer on how much your time is worth to the company. Every time you clock in, you are selling your time back to your employer for that previously agreed upon rate.
Most people don’t realize they can get more value for their time because they think the safety of a paycheck is the best possible deal they can make. The only way to top it is to increase the fixed rate. But the fixed rate, time-for-money sale is actually one of the worst deals available. You simultaneously eliminate any opportunity to sell that time at a higher value, and lock yourself into a fixed rate for the foreseeable future where the buyer (your employer) controls the terms.
Time is your most valuable asset because you only have a limited amount of hours per day. Selling most of them for a flat rate is one of the least profitable sales you can make. You invest 40+ hours per week and your employer takes what you produce, packages it, and sells it at a significant markup. Not much freedom in that scenario.
So in reality, you haven’t been avoiding sales, you’ve just been selling poorly. (Don’t worry, it took me a long time to figure this out too. Most never figure it out, so you’re ahead of the game.)
The truth is that selling is unavoidable. It’s literally the only way to make money. Sales is what keeps the economy functioning. It’s a necessary component of society.
But if it’s so fundamental, why does it feel so wrong?
Win or Lose
Most people have an aversion to sales for a few reasons. It’s possible you had a bad sales experience in the past that has left the pitch forever tainted in your mind. Or maybe you have a subconscious aversion to money in general, which is just as common, if not more. And if you’re already money-averse, sales (or pursuing money in general) is just as bad or worse.
These beliefs are planted in our minds at a young age before we even know what to do with them, so it’s no wonder we hold onto them throughout life, despite their contradictory nature. Whether you had a bad sales experience, or you find the pursuit of wealth to be immoral (or both) most people who avoid sales hold a common belief. The belief that sales is a zero-sum game. That is to say that for someone to win, someone else has to lose.
This zero-sum belief is supported by the aversion to money, and reinforced by negative sales experiences. The people who hold this belief see rich people and think “they must have screwed over so many people to get that wealth,” and in some cases they have. But many times that’s not the case, and really, it takes more than screwing people over to have success in sales. Real sales, ethical sales, doesn’t have a winner and a loser.
An ethical sale creates a mutually beneficial arrangement. Both parties, the buyer and the seller, are better off after having made the sale, than either of them were before. The buyer is better off because now they have a solution to a problem. A better solution than they could have come up with on their own. Better, faster, cheaper, or more convenient. The seller is better off because they collected on the sale.
So really once you understand ethical selling, there is no reason to avoid sales. Which is good, because we’ve already established that sales is unavoidable. The good news is that you’ve already been selling for your entire professional career. The real question is, are you getting a fair price for what you’re selling?
Right now, for most people, the honest answer is no.
But that’s not because you’re lazy, or “bad at sales”, or because selling is wrong. It’s because you didn’t even know you were selling in the first place. Once you realize every exchange of money involves selling, you can make it happen naturally, ethically, and effortlessly.
And it starts with understanding what money actually is.
What Money Really Is
Somewhere along the way, money got a bad reputation.
Maybe it was the phrase “money is the root of all evil,” misquoted so many times it became cultural gospel.
Maybe it was watching wealthy people behave badly and assuming the money made them that way.
Maybe it was just the general cultural discomfort with openly wanting more than you have.
Whatever the source, most people carry a quiet belief that money is morally complicated. That wanting it makes you greedy. That pursuing it at all makes you a bad person.
But the truth is that money is morally neutral. It’s not good or evil. It’s not corrupting or purifying. It’s simply a tool. A unit of measurement for an exchange of value between two people who both walk away better off than they started.
My mentor put it this way: “Money is nothing more than a certificate of appreciation.”
When someone pays you, they’re not surrendering something precious. They’re acknowledging that what you gave them was worth the exchange. They’re saying thank you in the most universal language humans have ever invented.
Think about the last time you bought a coffee. When you were served, you were better off than before, because now you had your morning caffeine. The coffee shop is better off than before because now they have more money than the resources for the cup of coffee cost them, so they can keep serving coffee to the community.
Yes, you could make the coffee yourself and keep your money. But you value the convenience of having the barista make it for you. You value the superior quality of the coffee that the shop has to offer. Maybe you’re far from home and making the coffee yourself isn’t an option.
How much is it worth to you to have it made immediately? If it’s worth less than the price of the coffee then don’t buy the coffee, just make it yourself. But the reason you probably don’t think about this as a sales transaction is because it’s worth significantly more than the price of the drink. So you give the business your certificate of appreciation to say “thank you for making the coffee so I don’t have to.”
The coffee shop solves that problem for you and may even offer an elevated experience that’s worth the five dollar price tag. And it’s the same in reverse. When a customer pays you for your product or service, they’re not being taken advantage of, they’re telling you your solution to the problem was worth it. Just like paying five bucks for a cup of coffee is worth it because it saves you a 15 minute drive home, making the coffee, and a 15 minute drive back to the office, or wherever you are.
You don’t feel manipulated when you swipe your card at the coffee shop. So why should any other sales transaction be any different?
Don’t Overcomplicate It
Money, or revenue, is the life blood of a business. A business stays alive when it engages in activities that bring in more money than they cost. That is to say that the survival of a business is determined by the frequency and magnitude of the monetary transactions in which it engages.
Now we already know that every monetary transaction is a sales transaction, so it follows that sales is the primary mechanism of business. Another way to look at it is that business is the best way to scale sales transactions.
When it comes down to it, business is just problem solving. The fundamental purpose of every business is to solve a problem. The business devises a solution in one or more of many forms (product, service, software, information, coaching, etc.) and delivers it to the customer. The customer now either knows how to solve the problem, or has already solved the problem. Thus they are happy to exchange a certificate of appreciation for having their problem solved.
Once you accept that money is just appreciation for value delivered, the entire concept of “business” becomes a lot less intimidating. It’s not about being a shark. It’s not about manipulation, or hustle, or grinding yourself into the ground. It’s about solving problems.
This is key to understand if you want to make significant money. We know the only way to make money is with sales transactions, and the best way to scale sales transactions is with business. So it’s imperative you understand that fundamentally, a business is a problem solving mechanism that leverages sales at scale to serve its customers and maintain profitability. Profitability further enables the business to continue serving its customers as best as possible.
Problem. Solution. Exchange.
That’s all business is. And the better your solution solves the problem, the more money people are willing to pay for it.
So the next natural question is “what problems can I help people solve?” But it doesn’t stop there.
Selling Anything Ethically & Effortlessly
First, determine your area of focus. What problems have you solved for yourself or others? How does your experience or expertise help other people solve the problem? Once you identify a problem you can solve (a real problem that causes real pain for real people) your relationship with selling has to change.
The key is to not approach the solution as an income generating mechanism, but to instead see the solution as the primary goal and the money as a byproduct. Now, when you find yourself in a sales situation as the seller, you can pause and say “how can I use my solution, expertise, or knowledge to help this person best?”
This often includes a question like “would my solution actually help this person solve the problem?” or “is purchasing the solution in this person’s best interest?” If the answer is no, give the best advice you can in order to steer them in the right direction, but don’t sell to them, even if the prospect wants to buy.
Now you know that when you are the seller, you aren’t going to end up with an unethical outcome. This takes a lot of the pressure off.
But, ethical selling is about more than just not pushing products on people who don’t need them. It’s just as much about educating the people that do need them.
Most people aren’t vocal about their solution because they don’t want to be that guy. The loud, pushy pitcher always turning everything into a sales opportunity. Totally fair.
Instead, they’d rather wait for people to come to them for the solution. This is when their “integrity” starts to get in their own way. They’ve spent so much time avoiding the archetypal salesperson that they’ve swung too far in the other direction. They’ve become invisible.
But think about it from the perspective of the person with the problem. If you have the solution to someone’s pain and you stay quiet out of fear of being “that guy,” you aren’t being humble. You’re being selfish.
You’re prioritizing your own comfort over their solution.
Remember, the sale isn’t just an opportunity to make money, it’s a responsibility to help someone solve a problem. Some people don’t even know it’s a problem, or that there is a solution. You have to point out the problem and meet them where they are to show them that a better way exists.
What used to be marketing simply becomes education.
You inform them of the problem, educate them on the solution, and then can very casually say, “you can get this solution from me personally” without pitching very much at all. The people who really understand the problem understand the value of the solution, so they’re happy to give a certificate of appreciation.
And when you’ve identified a problem and/or solution that you’re passionate about, the whole process becomes effortless. You actually care about educating the people with this problem so they can end their suffering, and as a result your “selling” automatically becomes much more authentic.
This is why I personally chose to focus on helping people solve the problem of independent income. I’ve watched too many people (myself included) follow a downward spiral of pain and frustration that comes from working a job that they hate.
It’s more than just sitting in traffic for an hour a day.
It’s more than just putting up with an annoying coworker.
It’s more than just trading 40+ hours a week for a paycheck.
It consumes all your time and energy, all the best hours of your day and best years of your life, and all it gives you in return is instability. One shaky leg to stand on: A paycheck that could disappear at any time, regardless of your work ethic or performance, forcing you to get scrappy to pay the bills.
I’ve witnessed these situations absolutely destroy people of all ages financially, emotionally, and physically. And because I have access to what I genuinely believe is the best solution to this problem, I feel morally obligated to at least inform people that there is a way out of this hell.
I struggled for a while with the whole “buy my course and quit your job” pitch. But once I started looking through the lens of education, the “selling” feeling disappeared entirely.
Once they know about the problem and your solution, it’s up to them to make a purchase decision. If they want to keep experiencing the pain that’s on them. But you have to at least inform them there’s a better way.
Start With What You Know
You came into this thinking sales was something that happened to you. Now you know it’s something you actually do (and have always done).
The only thing left is to do it intentionally.
Here’s a simple 3 step process to follow if you want to put this into action:
Brainstorm a list of problems you have solved for yourself or someone else.
Pick one.
Get clear on your experience and perspective.
That’s your starting point.
If you want to make money you have to sell something.
If you want to make lots of money, you have to scale your sales.
If you want to scale your sales, your best bet is to to run a business.
If you want to run a business, you have to solve a problem for your customers.
If you want to solve a problem for your customers, you have to serve your customers.
When you practice serving, selling comes naturally.
If you want to see it in action, join us for the free Mission 1000 live event. This live workshop is all about creating independent income online and selling to serve. Like I said, I genuinely believe this is the best solution to the financial autonomy problem. Grab your seat here.
See you there,
Tim
Great article! This really reframed sales for me. The idea that selling is less about convincing and more about helping someone recognize a problem you can genuinely solve makes the whole thing feel a lot more human. “Problem. Solution. Exchange.” really says it all. Looking forward to more articles!