Don't learn to sell - learn to help!

"Learn to sell" - this advice is everywhere. But it creates the dangerous illusion that you can sell anything if you just master the skill. The truth is, it rarely works. Instead of focusing on selling, reframe the challenge.

Poor sales aren't just a sales problem - they're a product problem. Instead of separating 'creating' from 'selling', shift your mindset to a single question: How can I help?

There are four key benefits to this approach:

First, helping someone means understanding who they are and what they need. This immediately defines your target audience and ensures that your offer resonates with the right people.

Second, helping is always tied to a specific outcome. When you focus on delivering real results, you make your product measurable - and people see a clear reason to pay for it.

Third, you can't help someone who doesn't want help. Instead of shoving your idea down people's throats, you start to listen and understand whether they really need what you are offering.

Fourth, once you've defined who you're helping, how and why, new ideas will emerge about how to do it better. These become product hypotheses that you can test, rather than desperately looking for ways to sell something that doesn't work.

So take your startup idea and reframe it: I want to help [someone] [with something] [achieve something]. Then start helping! Because people never turn down real, valuable help.