品春秋|纳瓦尔:学会销售,学会构建;若两者皆能,你将势不可挡
学会销售，学会构建；若两者皆能，你将势不可挡。
Learn to Sell, Learn to Build . If you can do both, you will be unstoppable.
——纳瓦尔
Learn to sell, learn to build.
尼维：谈到技能组合时，你曾说 "要 学会销售，学会构建，若两者皆能，你将势不可挡。"
Nivi: Talking about combining skills, you said that you should “learn to sell, learn to build, if you can do both, you will be unstoppable.”
纳瓦尔：这是两个非常宽泛的范畴。其一为 "构建产品"，这是一项复杂的多维度工作，涵盖设计、开发、制造、物流、采购，甚至包括服务的设计与运营，定义极为广泛。
Naval: This is a very broad category. It’s two broad categories. One is building the product. Which is hard, and it’s multivariate. It can include design, it can include development, it can include manufacturing, logistics, procurement, it can even be designing and operating a service. It has many, many definitions.
但每个行业都有 "构建者" 的角色：在科技行业，他们是首席技术官、程序员、软件工程师或硬件工程师；即便在洗衣行业，构建者也可能是设计洗衣服务流程的人 —— 确保系统高效运转、衣物准时送达指定地点等。
But in every industry, there is a definition of the builder. In our tech industry it’s the CTO, it’s the programmer, it’s the software engineer, hardware engineer. But even in the laundry business, it could be the person who’s building the laundry service, who is making the trains run on time, who’s making sure all the clothes end up in the right place at the right time, and so on.
另一范畴是 "销售"，其定义同样宽泛：销售不仅指面向个体客户的推销，还包括市场营销、沟通表达、人才招募、融资、激励团队或公关等，是一个广义的概念集合。
The other side of it is sales. Again, selling has a very broad definition. Selling doesn’t necessarily just mean selling individual customers, but it can mean marketing, it can mean communicating, it can mean recruiting, it can mean raising money, it can mean inspiring people, it could mean doing PR. It’s a broad umbrella category.
2.硅谷模式是构建者与销售者的组合
The Silicon Valley model is a builder and seller.
纳瓦尔：因此，总体而言，硅谷初创企业的模式往往效果最佳。这并非唯一的成功路径，但当两位创始人中，一位是顶尖的销售者，另一位是顶尖的构建者时，这种模式可能是最常见的。
Naval: So, generally, the Silicon Valley startup model tends to work best. It’s not the only way, but it is probably the most common way, when you have two founders, one of whom is world class at selling, and one of whom is world class at building.
当然，典型案例包括苹果公司的史蒂夫・乔布斯和史蒂夫・沃兹尼亚克；微软早期的比尔・盖茨和保罗・艾伦可能也承担了类似的职责；拉里和谢尔盖（谷歌创始人）或许也按这种模式分工，尽管情况略有不同 —— 因为谷歌的产品技术属性极强，却通过简洁的界面交付给终端用户。
Examples are, of course, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak with Apple, Gates and Allen probably had similar responsibilities early on with Microsoft, Larry and Sergey probably broke down along those lines, although it’s a little different there because that was a very technical product delivered to end users through a simple interface.
但总体来说，你会不断看到这种模式的重复 —— 构建者与销售者，CEO 与 CTO 的组合。风险投资人和科技领域的投资者几乎被 "训练" 成会尽可能寻找这种组合，因为这是神奇的成功组合。
But generally, you will see this pattern repeated over and over. There’s a builder and there’s a seller. There’s a CEO and CTO combo. And venture and technology investors are almost trained to look for this combo whenever possible. It’s the magic combination.
3.若两者皆能，你将势不可挡
If you can do both you will be unstoppable.
纳瓦尔：终极状态是一人兼具两种能力，此时你将拥有真正的超级力量，甚至能创造整个行业。
Naval: The ultimate is when one individual can do both. That’s when you get true superpowers. That’s when you get people who can create entire industries.
埃隆・马斯克就是鲜活的例子：他或许不会亲自制造火箭，但他的技术理解足以做出实质性贡献。他对技术的掌握足够深刻，没人能在专业领域蒙骗他，且他从不轻易宣称无法实现的目标 —— 尽管对时间线可能持乐观态度，但他认为最终交付具有合理性。
The living example is Elon Musk. He may not necessarily be building the rockets himself, but he understands enough that he actually makes technical contributions. He understands the technology well enough that no one’s going to snow him on it, and he’s not running around making claims that he doesn’t think he can’t eventually deliver. He may be optimistic on the timelines but he thinks this is within reasonableness for delivery.
即便史蒂夫・乔布斯也培养了足够的产品技能，并深度参与产品研发，在两个领域都游刃有余。拉里・埃里森以程序员身份起家，我认为他编写了甲骨文的首个版本，或至少深度参与其中。
Even Steve Jobs developed enough product skills and was involved enough in the product that he also operated in both of these domains. Larry Ellison started as a programmer and I think wrote the first version of Oracle, or was actually heavily involved in it.
马克・安德森也是如此：他或许对销售技能不够自信，但作为程序员，他编写了网景导航者浏览器（或其中大部分代码）。因此，我认为任何领域的真正巨头，都是兼具构建与销售能力的人。
Marc Andreessen was also in this domain. He may not have had enough confidence in his sales skills, but he was the programmer who wrote Netscape Navigator, or a big chunk of it. So, I think the real giants in any field are the people who can both build and sell.
4.我宁愿教工程师营销，也不愿教营销人员工程
I’d rather teach an engineer marketing than a marketer engineering.
纳瓦尔：通常，"构建能力" 是销售人员成年后难以掌握的，因为它需要高度专注的时间投入。但构建者可以在稍后阶段学习销售，尤其是当他们本身具备良好的沟通天赋时。比尔・盖茨有句名言恰如其分地概括了这一点："我宁愿教工程师营销，也不愿教营销人员工程。"
And usually the building is a thing that a sales person can’t pick up later in life. It requires too much focused time. But a builder can pick up selling a little bit later, especially if they were already innately wired to be a good communicator. Bill Gates famously paraphrases this as, “I’d rather teach an engineer marketing, than a marketer engineering.”
我认为，如果你从一开始就具备构建思维和构建技能，且仍处于人生早期，或有足够的专注时间去学习销售，同时拥有一些天生的特质或具备成为优秀销售的潜力，那么你可以在这些方面加倍投入。
I think if you start out with a building mentality and you have building skills and it’s still early enough in your life, or you have enough focused time that you think you can learn selling, and you have some natural characteristics or you’re a good salesperson, then you can double down on those.
现在，你的销售技能可能并非传统意义上的销售。例如，假设你是一名优秀的工程师，当人们说 "你现在需要擅长销售" 时，你可能不擅长面对面销售，但可能是个出色的写作者。
Now, your sales skills could be in a different than traditional domain. For example, let’s say you’re a really good engineer and then people are saying, well, now you need to be good at sales, well, you may not be good at hand-to-hand sales, but you may be a really good writer.
写作是比当面销售更容易学习的技能。因此，你可以先培养写作能力，直到成为优秀的线上沟通者，再将其用于销售场景。
And writing is a skill that can be learned much more easily than, say, in-person selling, and so you may just cultivate writing skills until you become a good online communicator and then use that for your sales.
另一方面，可能你是个优秀的构建者，不擅长写作，也不喜欢面向大众沟通，但擅长一对一交流，那么你可以将销售技能用于招聘或融资 —— 这些更偏向于一对一的工作。
On the other hand, it could just be that you’re a good builder and you’re bad at writing and you don’t like communicating to mass audiences but you’re good one-on-one, so then you might use your sales skills for recruiting or for fundraising, which are more one-on-one kinds of endeavors.
这也印证了一点：如果你处于两者的交叉点，不必沮丧自己不是最顶尖的技术专家或销售人才。但神奇的是，这种技能组合 —— 回到斯科特・亚当斯的 "技能栈" 理论 —— 两种技能的结合足以让你势不可挡。
This is pointing out that if you’re at the intersection of these two, don’t despair because you’re not going to be the best technologist and you’re not going to be the best salesperson, but in a weird way, that combination, back to the Scott Adams skill stack, that combination of two skills is unstoppable.
从长远来看，既懂底层产品和构建逻辑，又能销售的人对投资者来说堪称 "吸金石"。如果他们有足够的精力，几乎可以突破任何壁垒，完成任何目标。
Long term, people who understand the underlying product and how to build it and can sell it, these are catnip to investors, these people can break down walls if they have enough energy, and they can get almost anything done.
尼维：如果只能选择擅长其中一项，你会选哪一个？
Nivi: If you could only pick one to be good at, which one would you pick?
纳瓦尔：当你试图在喧嚣中脱颖而出时，选择 "构建" 其实更好，因为太多野心勃勃的销售人员缺乏实质内容支撑。在起步阶段，想获得认可，构建能力更具优势。
Naval: When you’re trying to stand out from the noise building is actually better because there’re so many hustlers and sales people who have nothing to back them up. When you’re starting out, when you’re trying to be recognized, building is better.
但长期来看，构建工作会让人精疲力尽 —— 它需要高度专注，且很难跟上时代，因为总有新人带着更新的工具和产品涌现，而且坦白说，他们往往有更多时间投入，毕竟构建是极其专注的任务。
But much later down the line building gets exhausting because it is a focus job and it’s hard to stay current because there’s always new people, new products coming up who have newer tools, and frankly more time because it’s very intense, it’s a very focused task.
因此，销售技能实际上更能随时间增值。例如，如果你以 "能构建优秀产品" 闻名，这固然不错，但当你推出新产品时，人们仍会基于产品本身来评判。但如果你以 "值得合作的商业伙伴" 著称，且具备说服力和沟通能力，这种声誉几乎会自我强化。
So, sales skills actually scale better over time. Like for example, if you have a reputation for building a great product, that’s good, but when you ship your new product, I’m going to validate it based on the product. But if you have a reputation for being a good person to do business with and you’re persuasive and communicative then that reputation almost becomes self-fulfilling.
所以我认为，如果只能选一项，可以先从构建起步，再向销售转型。这听起来像模棱两可的回答，但我认为这确实是正确的选择。
So, I think if you only had to pick up one, you can start with building and then transition to selling. This is a cop-out answer, but I think that is actually the right answer.
*图片和文字来源网络，版权归原作者所有。
*如有侵权，请联系我们删除
评论