We’re all sales people!
Haven’t heard that one before, have you?
Well, it came back to be very poignant for me recently. You see, my wife is a cop (yes, I call her a cop, not a police officer, not Sergeant, not “ma’am”), just a plain cop. One of the tens-of-thousands that serve our communities around the country.
So, as you would expect, I end up hanging around lots of cops, either at picnics or social functions or when I drop off something to my wife at her work. One of those social occasions occurred this past weekend.
As always, I was asked “What do you do for work?”
And, as always, I answered “I work for a start-up that helps sales professionals engage their prospects and close deals faster”.
And then the conversations usually digresses into two directions — either “don’t you hate used car sales people” or “I could never do that job, I would hate to sell my soul on a daily basis”.
Well, this conversation turned in a different direction.
The officer that had asked me what I did said this, which, to most of us sales professionals reading this, is a no-brainer:
“Isn’t it amazing how most people don’t realize that all of us our salespeople? That my son, to get his girlfriend, had to ‘sell’ himself to her; or that I have to ‘sell’ myself on a daily basis, not only as a police officer, but also as a member of the community and local government; or that, even when I’m not in uniform, I am still ‘selling’ myself, either as someone who is successful or not, someone who loves life or not, and so forth. It’s always ‘fake-it-til-you-make-it’. We are always selling ourselves and when I hear people say ‘I could never be in sales’, I have to laugh, because they are selling themselves every day in every thing that they do.”
Well, I can tell you, that social function was one that I will remember for years, as I had found someone that was willing to discuss the psychiatry, sociology, and philosophy that makes someone think that they aren’t in sales when they really are.
For those of you who read my blog and aren’t in sales, let me give you some examples of when you “sell” yourself:
- You go on a date and you want to see him or her again — and you do everything you can to get their phone number. That’s sales.
- When you were in school and you got a bad grade — and you approached the teacher and whined and needled them until they made it a B instead of a B-. That’s sales.
- You answered the office phone and you needed to get the angry caller to hold for a moment, without getting them more angry. That’s sales.
Every day, in almost every interaction, we have to sell something.
Sales isn’t bad — because it always comes down to the personality behind the sales person. Of course there are some bad ones (like the stereotypical used car salesman), but, the majority of them believe in what they are selling. That it really will help you do business faster or save more money or whatever. It is hard for someone to sell something that they don’t believe in.
If you don’t like the person that you are trying to get the phone number from at the party, you aren’t going to try. It’s the same in “sales”.
And yes, for sales professionals, it almost comes second nature. There’s not much more of a lesson here for them. And for Police Officers, it’s also second nature — just in a bit more stressful of an environment (at times).
Good luck selling!
