IS SALES A DIRTY WORD?

Having been on this planet for a great many years and having worked in a sales role for more than thirty of them, I’m still left wondering why some people look down on me from what they appear to perceive to be a superior position. It seems sales is a dirty word to many people.

Maybe it’s just me, maybe my approach isn’t what people like, or maybe they just brand salespeople as somewhat of a lower form of life. After all, yesterday this was what I was effectively branded when following up after an enquiry.

“You salespeople are all the same” they said, “You don’t care about what I need, all you care about is making money. Frankly you make me sick with your falsity and promises and I don’t trust any of you”.

I asked them to consider what they’d just accused me of and suggested that their opinion may have been based on some previous poor experiences. “Maybe you were perhaps a victim of someone selling double glazing in the 1980’s” I said.

Yes, I thought I’d try and lighten the tone of the conversation a bit...

“I wasn’t even alive in the 80’s”, they replied.

I commented on how fortunate they were to be so much younger than I, and the fact that they’d been spared such an extravagant sales patter - double-glazing was, after all, an art form all by itself!

“So what is it that you don’t trust about salespeople” I asked.

“Well, it’s just money, money, money - that’s all you care about. You’re only in it for yourselves, and you couldn’t care less about customers”, came their reply.

“Remind me, what is it you do for a living, what industry do you work in” I questioned.

“Investment Banking” they replied.

“Understood, shall we move on to talking about Covid or the weather, as I’m not too sure where this conversation is going to go!”

Long story short... after a 30 min chat about greed, endowment sales, and stock market/bank crashes and GDP, we finally agreed that their hatred of salespeople was ill founded and was based purely from the influence of  others, and not any of their own proven bad experiences.

The call ended with them saying, “You’ve not tried to sell me anything Mike, you just listened and have clearly understood what I need. Why have you NOT attempted to sell me your services?”.

“YOU MUST BE JOKING; I WOULDN’T DREAM OF HELPING SOMEONE WHO WORKS IN YOUR INDUSTRY - YOU SCUMBAG”

We laughed loudly together and agreed to discuss services when meeting next.