Sell or Be Sold(4)
When I was starting my first business, almost everyone told me how difficult it was going to be, how much money it would take, how risky it was, and how few businesses make it. None of these people had ever actually started a business themselves, but they had plenty of advice for me. You see, this is data that disregards all the successful stories of people like me who started their own business. I later started another company that required me to take on a partner. Multiple people suggested to me that most partnerships don’t work out. Well, I can only tell you that while partnerships may be difficult, this business would have been impossible for me to operate without a partner. By the way, that particular partnership, which we closed on with a handshake, has lasted for almost fifteen years.
People tend to form opinions, give advice, and pass on myths when they don’t actually have any personal experience. Much of the data they pass along hasn’t been fully inspected for truth even though it’s been passed on as truth.
Take urban legends, for example. A guy will swear to you that it was a friend of a friend’s sister who disappeared on prom night twenty years ago and that her ghost now hitchhikes along the lonely road between town and the old cemetery. You’ll hear that same story in multiple cities across the country. If you ask the guy to give you specific names and dates, he won’t be able to provide them, yet just moments ago he was passing on this falsehood as though it were truth.
Many years ago, I was told not to move to California because “it was so expensive and the people were very strange.” People who had never lived in California told me this!
The same phenomenon occurs with sales, and it’s given the whole profession and the skill itself a bad name. It’s a shame because everyone needs the skill of selling to get along in life, and the profession itself offers so much freedom and so many financial benefits. People continue to pass on the false information that selling is hard, that it’s difficult to depend on commissions, that selling is sleazy, that you’ll have to work long hours, that it isn’t a dependable profession, that you can’t rely on the income, and that it’s not considered a “real” job! It’s a shame, because selling as a profession offers a great deal of freedom and numerous financial benefits.
Most of the perceptions people have regarding sales are very rarely based in reality. Certainly any negative images you might have had about salespeople are based on the past—which would suggest that they’re not particularly relevant to the present because they’re in the past. If I’m talking about selling, persuading, and negotiating, you might get an image of a past experience or something you were told about salespeople that would take you out of the present conversation. You would be relying on some past decision, advice, or opinion for your information. All images based on the past have very little value in the present and definitely no value in creating a future.
SELLING—CRITICAL TO SURVIVAL
Regardless of your preconceived opinions, ideas, or evaluations regarding sales and salespeople, you need to fully adopt the idea that you’re going to have to sell no matter what your position or job is in life. Whether you’re rich or poor, male or female, on salary or on commission, you’re always selling something to someone in order to advance. There is no exception to this rule and no way to escape it. But that doesn’t mean that you have to start wearing polyester slacks and white patent-leather shoes and talk fast and pressure people to do what you want them to do.
Take a moment to consider all the different roles you play in life. Let’s say you came up with wife, partner, employee, mom, teacher, church member, neighbor, friend, writer, and PTA president. I want you to look at each of these roles and observe how selling is involved in it. Maybe selling isn’t your full-time career and maybe you don’t get paid a monetary commission to sell products, but I assure you that you’ll see how selling will affect your success in each role more than any other single ability that you possess.
The receptionist who wants a raise, the actress who wants the part, the guy who wants the girl—all rely on selling themselves, whether they know it or not. A professional salesperson who depends on sales for his livelihood definitely needs to know how to do this thing called selling. When you’re driving to work and want to get off the freeway, you have to negotiate and sell the other drivers so you can access the off-ramp. When you find yourself buying a house and trying to convince the seller to sell at a lower price, you’re selling. When you go to the bank to get a loan, you’ll be selling the loan officers on why they should give you a loan. When the actor goes to an audition and hopes to get the part, no matter how well prepared he is, he’d better be able to convince the director that not only can he act, but he is the right guy for the part! Start preparing now because there’s no way to avoid the fact that you’ll need this skill to do well in life.