 The simple mistakes most poor people make that makes them poor. Three years ago, a man read my book. Then he called to ask for my help. According to him, he had written more than 20 books, but had sold very few copies. How is that possible? I have written few books and have made thousands of dollars from those books. Something occurred to me then. I realised knowing how to write a book isn't the same thing as knowing how to sell the book. Jared Joyce is the founder of Five Minutes Furniture. About three years ago, he appeared on Shark Tank to raise investment for his furniture business. When one of the sharks asked him, have you made money before? His answer was no. However, he argued that he had 80 inventions. OK, I get it. 18 inventions is a big deal. Yet, he didn't make any money from those inventions. That makes no sense. Yet, that's what so many poor people do. They work so hard to know how to do stuff, to become a professional to invent or become an expert. So many people in the world believe that if they are good at something, they will get rich doing it. This is not true. Knowing how to do stuff isn't the same as knowing how to sell them. An African proverb says, before you learn how to fight, learn how to talk. Meaning, after the fight, you'll have to talk to defend yourself. You'll have to explain to your listeners how you're right and the other person is wrong. Thus, if you know how to fight but you don't know how to talk, you'll lose your case when people want to judge you. This is applicable when trying to become rich. You have to learn how to sell before you can learn how to make a product, service or build a skill. If you don't know how to sell, it doesn't matter how good your skills or products are. You'll be poor. A step away from millions. I know some people who are very intelligent. These people are so smart, they shouldn't lack money. Yet, they have never made serious money. In his book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki told a story. He said he often asked his audience to raise their hands if they think they could make better hamburger than McDonald's. At this question, most people raise their hands that they could. Then Robert would ask them, if you can make better hamburger, why aren't you rich? Again, it's not what you can make, but what you can sell. But then I get it, selling is synonymous with salespeople. When we hear the word selling, we imagine someone trying to sell some products or services. But really, we are all sellers, whether we are business people or we are scientists or inventors. Some time ago, I watched the video of a soldier who became a national hero. When I thought about his efforts, I observed something else. Although he is a soldier, he's a great salesperson as well. Here's what he did. Like most of us, he has social media profiles. But unlike most soldiers, he took his smartphone to the battlefields to show his followers what was going on there. So, if you followed him on social media, you'd see what is happening on the battlefield real time. Since an average civilian has no clue how difficult wars can be, seeing a soldier going through what he's going through makes you adore him. You simply want to follow him. Though this man is a soldier and is doing exactly what other soldiers are doing, he becomes the hero because he shows his followers what soldiers go through during battle. If he decides to run for president in his country in future, his exploit will speak for him. When he becomes the president, the reason would not be because he's the most qualified or the best person. The reason would be because he's the best salesperson. Thomas Edison was a great inventor. Unfortunately, what we don't know is that he wasn't necessarily the best inventor in his generation. Instead, Edison knew as much about selling as he knew about inventing. They are countless people who were great inventors. They invented great and valuable things, but since they did not know how to sell, they died poor. In fact, at a point, Thomas Edison only concentrated on commercially viable inventions. What this means is that Uncle Thomas was doubtful. If he had a doubt that certain inventions would not make him profit, he'd not waste his time trying to invent it. Someone would ask me, is life all about money? Do we live only to pursue money? What if someone is doing something great and doesn't make money out of it? Do we call such a person a failure? Well, let me answer you. Money is an amplifier. It helps us to do more, reach more people and be a blessing to the world. Think about this for a moment. This channel you're watching now was watched by 2.1 million people last month. Yes, 2,100,000 people from more than 70 countries in the world. Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people, have been blessed by our content. But guess what? It costs us a lot of money to achieve that. As I've told you before, we have a team of people who wake up every day to make videos for YouTube. All of these people have bills to pay. They don't work for free. So do the math. They wake up every day to make the world a better place, because they know their bills will be paid doing so. Now, if we don't make money from this channel, our team will not be able to work. Our content may impact millions of people every month, yet we will not be able to produce more videos, because our team isn't getting paid. So, here's what I think. Even if you want to impact the world, you still need to know how to make money, because it's expensive to do great things. Don't be poor. Here's the summary of this video. Most people are poor not because they are not hardworking. Most people are poor not because they are not intelligent. Most people are poor not because they are not professionals, or they do not have good products. Most people are poor because they do not know how to sell themselves or their products. Don't forget the proverb I shared with you earlier. Learn how to talk before you learn how to fight. Learn how to sell before you learn how to make or build a skill. Read a lot of books about marketing, selling and negotiation. Use every opportunity you have to sell something. Either your idea, getting people to do something for you, or selling a product and service. Again, it doesn't matter how great you or your product are. It matters whether or not you know how to sell. Thank you for watching our videos. Don't forget to like this video and to subscribe to our channel. We love you.