I think most of us have heard the maxim that we should be ‘eating our own dogfood‘. To be clear, all that is meant by this phrase is that we should be consuming the products (or services) that we ourselves have created. The rationale is quite simple; if you yourself don’t like using your product then no one else will, and there’s no better way to test the user experience or demonstrate the product’s capabilities, especially for those at the company that aren’t involved with the building of the product itself. It seems so simple, yet I get pitched daily by business teams and execs that seem to have little to no understanding of the very product that they’re selling. And once it becomes apparent to me that someone is trying to sell me something that they know very little about, their credibility is shot and usually so is the proposed deal. Before joining Shopify, I was a customer (via smoofer), and we used the product on a daily basis for many months, which provided me with an incredible understanding of the platform. There is no way I would be able to bring in business at the current level had I not had a deep knowledge of our offering. With that said, my suggestion (especially for those that work on the business team) is to go learn everything there is to know about what you’re selling, before you start selling it. And then #Hustle like hell.
Entrepreneur
