Let’s start with an introduction. Person who hates sales and swears never to become a salesperson, meet salesperson who is frustrated and unhappy with her job. You have a lot in common!
Surprised? Take a look at the following reasons to hate selling and see if you agree. Then, consider how that belief (even if ill-conceived) makes you a better potential salesperson.
The job of a sales person, at its core, is to lie or exaggerate.
Toilet paper. However boring or unpleasant, can we all agree it’s a product that effectively fills a need? Successful salespeople find customers with needs they can fill. At times, ambition and greed drive salespeople and their companies to push use of their products on customers who don’t need them. So yes, some salespeople do lie or exaggerate.
Luckily, not all companies are that desperate. Greed, on a personal or corporate level, is a choice. Customers buy from people whom they trust and who go out of their way to be ethical.
Feeling the constant rejection of a sales job would be devastating.
We humans are naturally focused on ourselves. We evaluate products based on our own benefit first. Salespeople start their careers with the same self-centeredness. They think their job is to be liked. In reality, customers tend to reject products or selling situations*, not salespeople (unless they’re rude).
Turning our focus away from ourselves and onto the customer helps us see what rejection actually is: information about a customer’s opinion, not a personal judgement. Rest assured, it’s good to be want to be liked. You’d be a jerk if you never cared what others think of you. Just try not to take every part of your job personally.
The pressure of a quota is too much to bear.
Ok, this concern can be legitimate. Not every sales job is created equal. Some employers treat their salespeople like stocks. They buy them low and dump them quickly on bad news. Still, other companies take the time to train and support their salespeople.
Finding a sales job, in today’s market, without a performance target is difficult. Keep in mind, you probably don’t fear the outcome of falling short. You fear what it says about you. Does failing make you a failure? That’s your choice to make.
Anyone in, or considering a career in sales should weigh the level of support offered by a sales position compared to it’s performance expectations.
Customers are often ignorant and never happy. Why try to please them?
Some of us go to great lengths to avoid the people who actually create the need for our work. Customers. Ignore them long enough, and you risk mistaking knowledge of your own business for knowledge of your customer’s. Take the time to listen to customer complaints and you will learn valuable information about how to improve your product offering.
Therefore, it’s more than OK if you don’t want to be that lying, self-absorbed, and stressed salesperson. The profession has hit it’s quota of those people! Instead, Sales needs people who not only want to work hard, but also are sincere and want to help others. Sales needs YOU!
Sincerely,
Meaning2work
*A selling situation is anything referring to the circumstances surrounding the sales interraction. Some common selling situation mistakes are visiting a customer at the wrong time or day, attempting to sell to someone who is not a decision maker, or approaching a decision maker when they are negative state of mind. The customer rejects the situation, not the salesperson or even the product.