Selling: the elephant in the room, and nobody wants to see it. Including you.
Spoiler alert: at the end of the day, everyone is selling something to someone.
If you agree, you can stop here.
If not, if you think you have nothing to do with selling, this is for you.
Most people associate selling with a money transaction. This is why I hear many people say, if not claiming “I am not in sales!” The “!” is very important because you can hear it in their voices that they don’t want, in any circumstances, to be associated with this “action.” They make it look like “selling” is a type of disease to be ashamed of. LOL.
Selling happens all around you and without a necessary direct or immediate money transaction. This is what Daniel H Pink, in his book, Selling Is Human, calls “non-sales selling.” According to Pink, we’re all engaged in some form of selling, whether persuading, influencing, negotiating, or bargaining. Always. And when you start looking at the world through these “non-sales selling” glasses, it’s like taking the red pill in the movie Matrix: you will see the act of selling everywhere.
Picture from Matrix, the movie
Not convinced? Ok.
When you argue with a friend about which movie to watch, are you not trying to sell your preference over theirs? You either sell your point of view or get sold someone else’s. In the latter case, let’s hope you will enjoy the popcorn.
When you have to book a meeting with someone important (whatever “important” means) in your organization, maybe at an early stage, the rule “first comes, first serves” applies. But not for long. In the end, time being limited, the agenda will be decided based on criticality or importance. If you don’t sell your cause, someone else will, and be ready to wait.
“I did not come down to make a speech tonight.
I came to sell an idea.” (1)
Even when you are by yourself, debating whether or not to eat this pint of ice cream, the “yes” voice on one shoulder and the “no” voice on the other, arguing, debating, and basically trying to sell you on opposite behaviors. It’s like being the referee of a fight with high stakes: your waistline. And this while you are by yourself. How bad can it be when you are not alone?
Keep in mind that you have two main possessions that everyone is fighting for:
your time
and your attention.
Period.
The rest is only a derivative of those two limited and scarce resources you own. And people, be it individuals or corporations, are fighting to get a piece of them. What about money? If you get your money by “earning” a salary, you are actually being paid in exchange for the time and attention you “allocate” to the company you work for. In that respect, the movie, In Time, is worth watching. In this fiction (hopefully, it stays like one), time becomes the currency. You get a certain amount of time for every task you do to continue living. When you run out of time, you hit the end of the road. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Time).
So let me ask you a question. If we are all selling all the time, in our personal life and at work, why are some salespeople referred to as “sales” people? Do they hold some sort of exclusive rights? Some sort of monopoly? Is it protected by an intellectual property law?
Or could it be that the rest of the world is simply too timid to admit what they do? Consider some job titles (professors, doctors, real estate agents, bankers, influencers, …) and their responsibilities, and see if what they do doesn’t involve “selling” in some capacity.
To keep it short, I would share my view on some of those jobs in different articles. I’ve done this exercise with a few friends, and their responses have ranged from “You’re right” to “You’re out of your mind.” I hope you will let me know what you think.
Nothing happens until someone sells something (2)
Maybe by now, we all agree that we are continuously engaged with a wide range of counterparts (children, family, friends, colleagues, customers, …) and through a wide range of activities that make up for “selling.”
And yet, most people don’t want to be associated at any degree with the concept of “selling.” And it is not something new. Back then, the “merchant” did not have the same rights as others, even if they were richer. Nowadays, the same persists, mostly, in my opinion, because of stereotypes (see article on that topic here).
To conclude, I asked earlier why only some types of salespeople had the word “sales” in their title (see here for a wide range of names). Is it a privilege? A curse? Or is it because of a lack of imagination and creativity from the companies that employ them? If not, a tendency to be self-centered, forgetting what is most important: the customer? I will address this point in another article.
Final words: are you sure you are not in sales?
(1) & (2) Extract from the beginning of a Salesforce Documentary about selling that I highly recommend. Available here: https://www.salesforce.com/story-of-sales/documentary-video-player/