Price of doing sales

I have been in the sales line for over 16 years which is why the topic for this round revolves around sales. It is an honorable profession. It is an old profession, perhaps as old as the infamous oldest profession.......if not older. Why I say it is probably older than the world's oldest profession is because the said service must first be "sold" to the purchasing party. Hence even before the world's oldest profession had it's first "proof of concept" the idea had to first be sold. Therefore, if one were to look at it from this point of view, it further reinforces Sales as the world's oldest profession.

It must have been quite a sight to witness the first Salesman (or Saleswoman as it were) attempting to sell their services. I am quite confident there were no specific sales methodology adopted in the selling process or cycle. Each must have had their own unique proposition. Each could have employed various tricks or techniques to entice the suitor their way. Some with attractive dressing, others with promises of mind boggling positions and yet others with hefty discounts. And as evolution would have it, all of these metamorphosed into structured methodology. Thus was born the modern salesman.

The birth of the modern salesman would have occurred circa late 1800s or early 1900s. Companies such as Eastman Kodak, Coca Cola, Wrigleys, GE and a few others can be credited for developing modern sales techniques and the creation of procedures for management. Prior to this, however, your average salesman is pretty much independent...travelling on his own time, managing his own schedules, routes and customer meetings. As long as sales were being generated, numbers were met, it mattered not how the salesman operated. Now, with the advent of structured sales methodologies, things had to change; and fast.

Don't get me wrong, structure sales methodologies are a good thing. It takes the individual out of the equation. Even if a salesman quit his job, methodologies ensure that another poor sod can take over with relative ease. Routes are planned. Customers evaluated prior to the salesman's departure. His every movement is recorded in reports and receipts. Some even instructs how a salesman should stand while talking to a customer or what to say via templated sales scripts. In short, they aim to make salesmanship uniform and, more importantly, predictable. Predictable salesmanship....what a concept !

With predictability came products, services, courses, etc, where, for a sinful amount of money, one can be thought to be a predictable salesman. Valuevision, TAS, SSM, SPIN and many many more will help one accomplish this goal. Having personally gone through many of these courses, I must say that one begins to see a commonality native to all of these. To quote someone (though i really don't know who made this saying famous though he/she may be rather shady) "there are many ways to skin a cat". End of the day, the cat is skinned. Same with sales methodologies......end of the day, the sale is made. Do i prefer one over the other? Not really.....and please perish the thought as I am obviously not referring to one particular method of skinning a feline over another. What I think is missing from all of these is a quality that cannot be put on paper...the IT factor. Whether you've got IT or you don't. Not everyone can be a salesman. Ever bought something from an individual that you don't really need? Why did you buy it? Because the person who sold it to you is an exceptional salesman.

There was an article in Time Magazine some time back about a truly remarkable salesman who made his way through university selling salesmanship courses. His signature closing line was "if you can't make up your mind faster than that, this course won't do you any good" and many a deal did he close. This individual also managed to sell over 42,000 units of a new type of home appliance before a single unit came off the production line. And this was no Proton. Hmmmm......Proton, a topic for another time. Yes, there are some people who are just born with IT. Yes you are born with IT. IT cannot be thought. IT cannot be created or destroyed. Reminds me of the First Law of Thermodynamics during school days. Before I jump completely off topic, I had a close friend who after a moment of inspiration decided to prove that 1 + 1 = 3. Till today we are still not sure what the inspiration was but it may have involved questionable substances that make you go "oh...what pretty colours" !!

Back to the topic of IT. One has to also understand that there is a fine line between IT and being a "used car salesman". Dilbert put's it nicely in his book a few years ago titled "Dilbert and the way of the Weasel" by introducing a new theory that "...people are huge, stinkin weasels" This book explores the Weasel Zone which is defined as a gray area between good moral behaviour and outright felonious activities; and the rules that govern it. Yes there are some very questionable salesmen in the market and will do anything to close a sale. Why? Is it because he is a weasel? or could it be because sales targets never reduce? I shall leave you to ponder this question.

While many people have mixed reactions about salespeople, they only have positive ones about marketeers. It is glamorous. Salesmanship is not. So why did I do sales for the past 16 years? Honestly, I didn't when i started out. However I found out that whatever work we do in whatever company we do it in, there is an element of salesmanship. So I indirectly became a salesman and never stopped.

I have a book to recommend "Ten Things I Learned from Bill Porter - Shelly Brady"

And as always....if you find the reading too heavy, pick up any Dilbert book !!