I realized then the importance of selling. That no matter what you have—if you have a podcast, if you have a m... — Gary Vaynerchuk

I realized then the importance of selling. That no matter what you have—if you have a podcast, if you have a movie, if you have a painting, if you have a car, a technology, a medicine, whatever it is—if people don’t know about it, you have nothing.

Author: Gary Vaynerchuk

Insight: Most of us grew up with a quiet assumption: if you make something good, people will find it. The quality speaks for itself. But anyone who's actually tried to get attention for their work knows this is mostly fiction. You can pour your heart into something genuinely useful or beautiful, and it'll sit in the dark while mediocre alternatives get all the eyeballs. This realization hits differently when it's your own thing on the line. The tricky part is that "selling" has gotten a bad reputation. We hear it and think manipulation or greasiness. But Vaynerchuk's pointing at something simpler and more honest: communication. Telling people what you've made and why it matters to them is just basic generosity if you actually believe in what you've built. A vaccine that cures disease but nobody knows exists might as well not exist. A song that moves people but reaches nobody is still unheard. The real tension is that most talented people hate this part. They want to create in silence and have their work discovered. But that's not how attention works in a crowded world. The uncomfortable truth is that skill at making something and skill at letting people know about it are now equally valuable. Your best work deserves an audience, which means learning to speak about it without pretense.

Source: Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, p. 12, 2013