Is sales a necessary evil or a life skill?
9 years ago during the last year of my Physics degree I had a bit of a crisis of identity about what I wanted to do with my future, so decided to go talk to the Universities career advisor. Once the session came around we went through lots of options, talking for about an hour and a half about all the future possibilities. I had an idea in my head that I wanted to go down the route of logistics, air traffic control or something similar. At the very end of the conversation the careers advisor asked me if I had ever considered sales and I scoffed brushing off the suggestion.
After graduating, I searched for lots of technical jobs, but none of them really seemed to scratch this invisible itch I felt. A few months later I interviewed was offered a position at NI as an Inside Sales Rep, and even then when I first joined and started my career in Sales, sales felt like a dirty word.
When you picture salespeople, so many people have this image in their head of this grimy watch salesman on the street trying to flog something to an unsuspecting victim (or maybe this was just my interpretation...) but it didn’t seem particularly glamourous.
My opinion has wildly changed, and it has been one of the best moves for my career and my personal life! It's helped me build confidence, communicate better and build relationships with lots of people. But most of all out of everything sales has helped me realise that you can't just wait for things to happen to you, you really have to go out, try interacting with new people, put yourself in difficult situations and get ready for some really terrible and awkward experiences to know how to get better.
I like to think of the situation of moving to a new town, job or house - something which I've done a few times. Often you'll have some people you know from wherever you were before, but it's hopeless if you just stick with them and hope other people are going to come to you and involve you in all of their interests. Most people who end up doing this will end up lonely, bored and with a bad taste around that new situation while looking back on the "good old days".
What sales has taught me is that you have to go out and introduce yourself to people, interrupt someone's life a little bit, and go out of your way to get involved in local clubs and hobby groups. If this strikes a chord with you, there's a great book that all my peers and team will know I reference which is How to Win Friends and Influence People. Stereotypical sales book but an amazing starter to build confidence and gives a few things to try that might push you out of your comfort zone.
The longer I spend in sales, the more I understand how everyone in one form, or another is trying to sell, convince or build some influencing skills in their job & life whether they’re in a sales function or not. There are some fundamental skills you get in sales that I feel so many people could benefit from:
- Listening more than you talk
- Doing your research to try and understand someone else’s perspective
- Anticipating and mitigating risks
- Challenging opinions and the status quo
While I do acknowledge that these aren't mutually exclusive to a sales career, they are abundant in a sales role and all these feel vital to having constructive conversations in a personal and business environment. So why is it that sales skills & salespeople still feels like a bit of a taboo subject?
I know lots of my network are from different backgrounds and have had different experiences with different salespeople, so I’d love to hear what others think and see what stories they have:
- What sort of experiences have you had with sales people?
- Have you ever wanted to try a career in sales but been put off?
- Are there other careers you feel have a similar taboo that you think others can learn from?
Technical Account Manager @Proofpoint | Cybersecurity, SaaS, Cloud Computing
1 个月Super interesting read Mark! I had the same type of vision on sales before getting really into it actually. I also learned a lot from Dale Carnegie’s book, those active listening skills are super important. You should write more articles btw!
Strategic Sales Professional
2 年Great piece! Having been in sales for the past 30 years or so, one has come up against all sorts of sales stereotypes (too many to list). What some fellow team members can sometimes forget is that sales is part of a team within any business and without them, no matter how good your product/service is, it is the sales team that are usually the 'first contact' of any company with their prospective clients/customers. (Likewise some sales can believe the company revolves around them!) In my experience successful sales people know this and will try and build relationships within their own business and value both the pre sales support and especially the post sales support/delivery their company can offer. As has been pointed out below by a good salesperson becomes trusted by the client as being more of a valued business advisor and will add profit and efficiency to their company. Too many times Sales has been ridiculed, but as I was starting out in my career (back in the mid 80’s), there was the apocryphal story of the DEC (Digital Equipment Corp) CEO who commented that ‘Salespeople were a necessary evil’ and lost the top 10% of his sales team (we can be sensitive sometimes) and saw his revenue drop by 30%! Coincidence? Possibly.
Human First Revenue Leader
4 年Great post Mark Whiteley! My most positive sales experience was with a car salesman (your typical slimy sales stereotype) who asked me questions to understand my needs, challenged my perceptions about what features I should get and helped me buy a great car that lasted for many years. We even had fun with the negotiation and I came away from the experience feeling like we’d both won. I keep this in mind whenever I see someone attempt to diminish the value of sales people. When done right it really does add value to the whole process. Thank you for sharing your experience!
Talk Cybersecurity & Zero-Trust transformation with Zscaler | ex-Salesforce ? | Cranfield University
4 年Hi Mark Whiteley, congratulations for this great and personnal testimony. I believe that every person who has experienced working in sales at some point in time will feel they share a lot with you in each paragraph - At least it's my case. About the famous image of "this grimy watch salesman on the street" to quote you, I believe it is the role of each passionate sales manager to evangelise arround them on the value that a Trusted advisors bring to their customer on a dailay base, illustrated with clear examples. They help the whole B2B2C chain to deliver leading edge product, solutions, technologies, that benefit to everyone's life in the end. And this is not about defending or fighting against people's mind about "Sales". It's about, as you said, help and enlighten the future generation of Sales talent that would maybe go the wrong direction in or move forward with wrong premade idea, as you shared.