I suspect that the negative responses come mainly from people who regard selling as something that other people do. I certainly thought that marketing was quite an easy thing to do before I set up my own business and built my own products and had to try things like Google ads, SEO rankings, cold calling, networking, content creation, making deals, and more. Painful.

The fact is that we cannot get away from selling. Going for an interview - tart up your CV and sell yourself. Going on a date - sell yourself. Want to convince a jury - sell your case. Wanting to upgrade your property - sell your house. Build a product or deliver a service - sell it: even if it is genuinely the best on the market that people should know about, you have to crack open the market and you will likely have to work against resistance.