Sales Is Sleazy — Story Inspired Belief

Growing up, I always held this belief that I could never be involved with sales and marketing. I felt it was so sleazy.

I associated anything sales related with having to sheepishly trick people into buying something they don’t really need. In my defense, this belief is reinforced in many Hollywood movies…

Think Glengarry Glen Ross, Wolf of Wall Street…

Without even realizing it, these movies influenced me to hold a certain belief growing up.

In fact, I remember sitting through my 11th grade English class as I watched the Death of a Salesman. As I sat there watching the demise of a guy who had dedicated his entire life to sales, I remember feeling a sense of superiority. In my head, as I sat in that advanced placement English class, I remember feeling a sense of relief that I was on track to never have to be a sleazy salesperson… (At the time, I felt that being in an advanced placement class gave me the right to feel that sense of being on the right track, lame I know)

The belief that being in sales is sleazy is a belief I carried for a while.

The thing is…

If a story is told masterfully, you automatically adopt the lesson of the story without even realizing that you’re being affected.

Questioning Old Beliefs

I would’ve probably gone my entire life never questioning that belief which was so smoothly implemented in my brain by Hollywood writers… until…

I wanted to pursue the life of an entrepreneur and this belief was now a big obstacle.

To add to the effect of the previously mentioned Hollywood movies, I also found a lot of websites that seemed to confirm my viewpoint — the idea that marketing and sales is sleazy. However, in hindsight, I’ve realized that I was seeing things through the lenses of the story I was telling myself.

If you google anything, you’ll often find arguments for and against everything.

Did you know that carrots, for example, are both the worst and best thing for you according to Google? Depending on the wording of your search query: “Carrots unhealthy?” vs. “Carrots healthy?” you’ll find great arguments both ways 🤦‍♀️

It wasn’t until I was introduced to my first mentor that I realized a lot of successful people have become successful by selling in completely ethical ways. Naturally, once my mentor shared stories of people who sold in ethical ways, I kept finding more and more examples. In other words, before I was made aware of this fact, I kept somehow noticing stories of people who have found success by selling in unethical ways. So my belief kept getting reinforced. A psychological principle called confirmation bias at its finest!

Confirmation Bias And The Story We Tell Ourselves

Basically, although yes, there are many people making money selling in unethical ways, there are also many people making money in ethical ways as well.

Here is where I started to find hope for myself. And just like that, the world of possibilities opened up in my life. It’s no secret that marketing and sales is very important for the growth of any entrepreneur’s business so this discovery was a breath of fresh air.

It’s interesting to learn how ideas and beliefs have been planted in our head in such sneaky ways. Once you become aware that most of your beliefs stemmed from some story or a series of stories you’ve been exposed to in the past, you start to appreciate the power of stories.

Of course the power of stories to persuade can be used for evil, but it can most definitely be used for good as well.

Now…There are two paths moving forward…

One can call people who intentionally use the power of story to persuade evil manipulators or one can appreciate the fact that stories have been a time and tested tool to influence for hundreds of years.

If you’re part of the latter group and a writer, I’ll invite you to subscribe to learn more about the power of using stories in your writing. Until next time!