The title states it clearly: everyone should have at least one sales job in their lifetime. Debatable, isn’t it!?

“Sales guys are scam artists.”
“Salesman are unethical.”
“I hate sales people.”
“I’m definitely not good at sales.”

I’m sure we’ve all heard, or said, something like this. Funny thing is, if you’ve said this, you are basically “selling” the reason why you hate salesmen. Welcome to the “Art of the Sale!” The question is, how can someone say this if they’ve never been in the sales industry before? Do they really feel they have a legitimate argument if they have no experience? It’s like fans that gripe about referees or umpires: if they’ve never been one, how can they logically criticize until they “step up to the plate”?

Sales guys get such a bad rap, possibly because of the “used car salesman” approach or the “door-to-door vacuum sales person”. To understand sales, you have to realize that every sales job is different:

Right after graduation from college I took a job with a copier & printer company doing “cold calling”, door-to-door sales. I was given no leads, no referrals, nothing – just thrown out there cold turkey. As I look back at that experience I can easily say that I learned so much; it’s not exactly what I’d want to do for a life-long career but was a step in the right direction. I also learned how important creating business relationships can be in generating new business. Just before I left that job for a better, more life-long option, I made a sale to a client for over $50,000. Why? It wasn’t because I knew all there was to know about the product; it wasn’t because I lied to them about what they were getting; it definitely wasn’t because we had the “best price in town.” It was primarily because of the friendship we had developed. It’s amazing what a few rounds of golf can do for a business relationship – it’s almost like taking surprise flowers to your wife! Clients like to be “wined & dined” and be taken care of. Everyone likes to have friends.

So, the whole point of this article is to prove the aforementioned statement: Everyone should have at least one sales job in their lifetime. If you really want to understand what motivation is, what commitment is, what hard work is, what creating win/win situations is – get a sales job. If you want to learn about the power of confidence and belief, the importance of setting and reviewing goals frequently, the influence being nice to people has on your success, and the psychology of why people do (or don’t do) what they do – get a sales job!

More to come…any thoughts?