Learn to sell anything before building anything

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Welcome to the Income Ivy newsletter.

What if learning to sell other people's products taught you how to build your own empire?

Most entrepreneurs start with a product idea, then struggle to market it. They build something and hope customers come. When sales don't materialize, they hire marketers to fix the problem.

Lynda Resnick did the opposite. She started an ad agency at 19, learning how to sell everything from flowers to electronics. Decades later, she used those skills to convince Americans to buy pomegranates they'd never heard of, building POM Wonderful into a $500 million brand.

Today, she and her husband Stewart own brands worth over $6 billion including Fiji Water, Wonderful Pistachios, and Halos mandarins. Every product succeeds because Lynda knows how to create demand before having supply.

The pattern? Three of the most successful business builders started as advertisers first, entrepreneurs second. They learned demand creation on other people's dime, then applied those skills to companies they owned.

Resnick's agency education worth billions

At 19, Lynda Resnick started an advertising agency in Los Angeles. Not because she loved advertising. Because she needed to make money and understood that every business needs customers.

She learned by doing. Small clients at first. Flower shops. Local retailers. Anyone who would pay her to help them sell more. Each project taught her what messaging worked, what pricing strategies converted, what packaging attracted attention.

By her mid-twenties, Resnick's agency handled major clients. She absorbed decades of marketing lessons in compressed time, seeing what worked across dozens of industries and products.

Then she stopped selling other people's products and started buying companies she could market herself.

In the 1980s, she and Stewart bought struggling brands and applied her advertising expertise. Teleflora, the flower delivery service, became profitable through her marketing. Franklin Mint collectibles exploded under her direction.

But the real test came with POM Wonderful in 2001. Americans didn't drink pomegranate juice. Most couldn't identify a pomegranate. The fruit was exotic, expensive, and had zero market demand.

Resnick's agency background kicked in. She didn't try to sell juice. She sold antioxidants and health. She funded medical studies. She created distinctive curved bottles that screamed premium. She positioned POM as a superfood before "superfood" became trendy.

POM Wonderful grew to over $500 million in annual revenue selling a fruit nobody wanted before Resnick marketed it. Then she did it again with Fiji Water, Wonderful Pistachios, and Halos mandarins. Same playbook. Create demand through marketing, then scale supply to meet it.

The Resnick empire is now worth over $6 billion. Built entirely on marketing skills learned selling other people's products first.

Vaynerchuk's wine store to media empire

Gary Vaynerchuk joined his family's liquor store in the late 1990s. Springfield Shoppers was doing $3-4 million annually. Nothing special.

Gary saw an opportunity to learn digital marketing before most people understood it existed. He started a wine review show on YouTube called Wine Library TV in 2006. Every day, he'd taste wines and teach people what to buy.

The show wasn't about selling wine. It was about mastering video marketing, content creation, and community building. Gary was running a free advertising education for himself, funded by the family business.

Wine Library's revenue exploded to $60 million annually within five years. Gary didn't have better wine. He had better marketing.

Then he made the pivot. In 2009, Gary launched VaynerMedia, a digital marketing agency. He'd take everything he learned marketing wine and sell those services to Fortune 500 companies.

VaynerMedia grew to over $200 million in annual revenue serving clients like PepsiCo, General Electric, and Anheuser-Busch. Gary became one of the most sought-after marketers in the world.

But the agency was never the end game. It was the training ground.

Now Gary invests in companies as an angel investor and through his fund, VaynerX. He's backed Facebook, Twitter, Uber, Venmo, and hundreds of other startups. His marketing expertise lets him see which companies will succeed at demand creation and which will struggle.

His net worth exceeds $200 million. All from starting as a marketer who learned by doing, then applied those skills to ownership stakes in companies.

Ogilvy's research-first fortune

David Ogilvy is called the "Father of Advertising" for good reason. But before he built one of the world's most famous agencies, he sold cookware door-to-door.

That sales experience taught him everything about human psychology, objections, and persuasion. He learned what messages worked face-to-face, where marketing theory meets reality.

In 1948, Ogilvy founded his agency with no clients and little money. But he had something more valuable: obsessive understanding of what makes people buy.

Ogilvy pioneered data-driven advertising when most agencies relied on creative intuition. He tested headlines, measured response rates, and built campaigns around research instead of guesswork.

His work for Rolls-Royce, Dove, and Hathaway shirts became legendary. The Rolls-Royce headline "At 60 miles an hour, the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock" is still studied decades later.

Ogilvy & Mather became one of the largest agencies in the world. But Ogilvy understood something crucial: the best marketers should own the companies, not just the campaigns.

He bought significant stakes in his own agency and counseled entrepreneurs to master marketing before scaling. His philosophy was simple: you can have the best product in the world, but if you can't market it, you have nothing.

By the time he retired, Ogilvy's agency was worth hundreds of millions. His influence on modern advertising and entrepreneurship is incalculable.

The marketing-first advantage

Here's what these three understood: Marketing is the highest-leverage skill in business. Better products don't guarantee success. Better marketing almost always does.

Resnick can make Americans buy pomegranates. Vaynerchuk can make wine shops generate $60 million. Ogilvy can make any product irresistible through the right campaign.

That skill made them better entrepreneurs than product experts ever become.

Why marketers build better companies

You see demand gaps, not just product gaps

Product people see what's missing in the market. Marketers see what people want but can't find. Resnick didn't see a pomegranate gap. She saw a health-conscious beverage gap that pomegranates could fill.

You validate before you build

Entrepreneurs spend years building products nobody wants. Marketers test messaging and demand signals before committing capital. Vaynerchuk proved wine video content worked before scaling the business.

You understand customer psychology instinctively

Building products requires technical skills. Selling products requires understanding human behavior. Ogilvy's door-to-door sales experience taught him persuasion that MBA programs never could.

You can manufacture demand instead of hoping for it

Most entrepreneurs pray customers discover their product. Marketers create the discovery. Resnick didn't wait for pomegranate demand. She manufactured it through positioning, studies, and packaging.

How to build your marketing-first foundation

Sell something for someone else first

Start an agency, join a marketing team, or freelance for clients. Learn demand creation on other people's products before risking your own capital. The education is worth more than the income.

Study what actually converts, not just what looks good

Ogilvy obsessed over data and results. Beautiful campaigns that don't sell are failures. Ugly campaigns that convert are successes. Track what works, not what wins awards.

Master one channel completely

Vaynerchuk owned YouTube wine reviews. Resnick mastered traditional advertising and PR. Ogilvy perfected print copywriting. Deep expertise in one channel beats shallow knowledge of many.

Apply marketing skills to your own ventures

Once you can sell anything, sell something you own. Use your demand creation skills on products where you capture 100% of the upside, not just agency fees.

Most entrepreneurs start with products and hope to figure out marketing later. By then, they've spent capital building something nobody wants and lack the skills to create demand for it.

The pattern that works? Learn to create demand first, build companies second.

Resnick's agency background let her sell pomegranates nobody wanted. Vaynerchuk's content skills turned a liquor store into an empire. Ogilvy's sales experience made him the most influential advertiser in history.

They built better companies because they learned marketing first. Products can be improved. Demand creation is the real competitive advantage.

What could you sell if you truly understood demand creation?

Until next time,
Emil - Founder of Income Ivy