Sales Yeah!
Role Interview With Silas Mahner
Now in Week 1 Module 2 or the Praxis boot camp, I was asked to conduct a series of interviews into the different role types that are offered in the apprenticeships. The first of the four roles (Sales, Marketing, Operations, and Customer Success) I chose to look into was sales. For my interview, I was given the privilege of interviewing Silas Mahner, a fellow Praxis participant who, although it is just in the boot camp, has over a year and a half of sales experience. I found our conversation to be extremely engaging. He had insightful answers for each question I asked him and was eager to share what he had learned in his time in sales.
In the interview, I asked a list of questions that I had previously thought up. That said, I let the conversations stay fluent and let Silas talk about what he thought was important.
With that said, here some highlights I found the most interesting from the interview:
Me: What is sales to you?
Silas: I would say sales in the transfer of belief from one person to another.
Me: People say the trick to sales is to think of it not think of it as a product, but as a solution you’re selling.
Silas: I have to admit, I sell everything. I sell things that are actually exchanging money, for example, I’m a huge fan of Apple. I’m constantly telling people, you need to get Airpods, you need to get Apple Watch, you need to get the new iPhone. I’m not going to get paid for that, but I love it. That comes back to it’s a transfer of belief, it’s not goods. It is, but it’s a transfer of belief because you’re not going to sell it well unless you believe in it.
Me: This is a two-part question. What is the most important skill that helped you with sales, that you brought in to it, and what is the most important skill you learned while working in sales?
Silas: The skills that I had would be optimism I think. Sometimes it wasn’t the best thing, I had to learn the difference between someone saying yes to get me out the door, versus someone who’s being serious. But my optimism kept me motivated, I never got to down. The skill that helped me most to succeed was learning to act like a detective. Asking questions, and when they answer, what do they really mean.
Me: For someone interested in sales, someone in Praxis, a participant, what would you tell them?
Silas: Every person should do a sales role for at least six months. I would even say more than six months. Do it, if you’re you’re not sure, do it, if you’re not even thinking about it, do it. Sales is the number one most importance. You’re going to learn things, you’re going to help people. If you don’t care about people then you won’t make sales. The benefits you learn from doing sales are so big, you understand how to communicate with people, you get the hang of knowing when someone is being dishonest with you and how to figure out what they want. You learn how to stack arguments, you learn how to present yourself well, you learn how to talk.
If you want to watch the whole interview, click on the video above.