One of my favorite quotes is "everything is sales." Not really for any particular reason. Maybe not even because it’s true. Just because it’s interesting.
What it means is that everything in life is about displaying something to other people in a way that makes them engage the way you want to be engaged with. Whether that's through buying your product, treating you with respect, or getting behind an idea that's important to you... everything is sales.
As with anything, it's not meant to be taken literally or universally, but it makes you think about things in a different way. It helps you ask questions about what you're doing and why. What you're hoping to accomplish, who you want to participate, and why, and how you’re going to get them to.
I saw this video recently of a guy on the Late Show with David Letterman. He had his dog play dead, and the dog played dead in ridiculous, semi-dramatic fashion.
The thing that made this video funny and entertaining was that the dog’s owner totally undersold what the dog was about to do. All he said was that the dog was going to do a simple trick. One we all know about.
It reminded me of HBO’s Talking Funny, an excellent conversation between 4 top comedians, where one of the things they talk about is introducing the next comedian onto a stage. Jerry Seinfeld explains how he bombed after someone made the poor choice to introduce him as “the best comedian in the world.” The problem, he says, is that when the audience has been primed to expect “the best,” there’s nothing that will entertain them. It makes the audience cross their arms and say, “oh, really.” From then on, it’s impossible to deliver a good show.
Which is the opposite of what happened with that dog on Letterman — if the dog’s owner had said, “my dog is going to play dead in the funniest way you’ve ever seen,” the audience would not have laughed as hard.
Sometimes part of selling something is not selling it at all. Because it allows an underdog situation or a pleasant surprise.
On the other hand, part of selling a stand-up comedy act (or one of my essays) is about starting with something great — selling the idea that the rest will be worthwhile.
I don’t like having to do it, but it must be done. Because writing isn’t just about writing. One of my biggest jobs is to get you invested in my piece in the first sentence, so that I can take the time to take you somewhere. That often means that in a span of about six to fifteen words, I have to say something that means something to you. That, much like Breaking Up, Is Hard to Do.
I have no idea why I just shared a Neil Sedaka link with you. But I’m leaving it in. Because that’s a great song.
It’s not about manipulating people, per se, but it is about manipulating expectations. If you can control someone’s expectations, you’re going to control their experience.
Part of Martin Scorcese’s filmmaking is selling how dangerous the Mafia was. If he wasn’t good at that, if the characters in his movies didn’t seem horrifyingly treacherous, his movies wouldn’t be interesting. They would just be blandly angry and violent.
Even in art itself, there’s sales. Unless you’re a true lone-wolf genius who truly doesn’t care to please anybody — but those are exceedingly rare. Even da Vinci agonized over presentation for years at a time. Because he knew that without the right presentation his deeply religious message would lose its gravity and heft.
Here’s another example: part of making friends is selling the idea that you’re trustworthy. Or that you’re willing to do things that are inconvenient for the good of another.
But again, does that mean you’re manipulating people? If everything is sales, does that mean that you are constantly selling something? Does that mean that you’re selling yourself as a person, like a prostitute or the guy who rolls into town with snake oil?
No. It doesn’t mean being dishonest and reckless. Or at least it shouldn’t. It means that if you want anything, you have to try. If you want friends, you have to try to earn them. You can’t just sit on the couch for ten years and hope that one day someone will call your cell phone and say “hey, I heard you were a trustworthy person and I need you in my life.” Word of mouth isn’t quite that strong.
The only people who are not selling anything are monks. Everyone else has some sort of personality that they’d like to be, or some idea they’d like other people to get behind.
And the first person you have to sell to is you.
For instance, if you want to start working out — you first have to sell yourself the idea of you being someone who works out. Unfortunately, the only way to do that, really, is to work out. So that you can then believe that you’d do it again.
This is why starting a new routine or habit is so hard and psychologically draining. Because it requires you to literally be someone else. It requires the act of selling something new to yourself, through yourself.
When I started Square Man, I brainstormed probably 70 or 80 different names for my Substack. I thought about it for days. Because if I’d have named my blog something stupid, it never would have taken off. People don’t want to read something with a stupid name. People don’t want to do business with a company with a stupid name.
The quality of what people buy and spend time on is important — they take it as a reflection of their own quality.
And my agonizing over the presentation of my work was mostly out of respect for the reader. Because I know that, as funny as it is to call the consumer an idiot, people tend to have good taste. Or, at the very least, they have enough taste not to have terrible taste.
Which is why, out of the probably thousands of companies since 2010 that were simply a noun ending in “-r” instead of “-er”, almost all of them failed. For every Tumblr and Grindr that succeeded, there’s a Waitr, a Plannr, and a Shipr that failed spectacularly.
It’s because those are stupid names for a company. If you can’t even sell your company as a thing in and of itself, nobody’s going to trust you to sell anything else.
Look at the biggest companies in the world. Not one of them has an outlandish, sophomoric, or un-catchy name. Part of selling your product is naming it something people want to be associated with.
When I finally landed on Square Man, Round World, it was for several reasons:
Because it’s honest
Because people could see themselves, like me, in the tragic irony of the name
Because it’s catchy enough to be memorable and shareable
Because it uses juxtaposition to directly generate imagery
And because it could be shortened (to Square Man)
Among other reasons.
Actually, sometimes people call me the Square Man now. I’m pleasantly surprised at how well that branding decision worked.
Don’t get me wrong — I don’t do this “to capture as large an audience as I can.” I’m not trying to get rich. If I was, I’d do some marketing. And I’d do things like trade recommendations for recommendations. Which I never have, despite having been asked to.
Honestly, I’d kind of like my Substack to be a bit more exclusive than that. I want readers who are serious about good ideas and have a great sense of humor. If people don’t have those two things, I don’t want them reading my stuff anyway. I’d rather have a club than a cult.
Surely you heard about Apple’s new VR headset this year.
When that headset was announced, I had a few thoughts. Like, for instance, “what a large price for something that nobody wants.”
I thought about it for several days. And then I realized… no, this isn’t about selling the headset. It’s not about the headset at all. Apple, as usual, is playing the long game.
Meta released their latest VR headset (which, likewise, nobody wanted) not long before. And Apple’s, despite not seeing any demand in the market, was far superior to Meta’s product. And I am also quite sure that Apple would not have been this wrong about the demand for something in the market.
So why did Apple release this headset at all?
To sell themselves as superior to Meta at playing the long game.
What Apple was saying with this product was “anything you can do, we promise, we can do it better.”
They weren’t selling headsets. They were selling iPhones, tablets, cars, and whatever else they want to make in the future.
I dislike Apple as an enterprise, but I respect that move. It was the marketing equivalent of cuckolding somebody. Apple made Meta watch as it fucked something they love. It was barbaric.
Selling is usually about the long game. Whether that’s in business, branding, relationships, or selling you to yourself as a good person. If you chase too many short-term sales, you’re going to pay for it by having a bad reputation long-term. With other businesses, with an audience, and even with yourself.
Everything is sales because everything is about getting people to play the kinds of games that you want to play with them. Ideally, those are long-term games with long-term people.
Drink some water but not some Watr.
JDR
“The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife.” - David Ogilvy
...And that's why we love the writing of the Square man. Solid writing. Keep up the great work!