TrainMySalesTeam.com: Sales As A Profession

The assumption that sales aptitude is born instead of learned coupled with the unrelenting stereotype of a mythological and unscrupulous used car salesman has built a culture of shame amongst sales professionals who should be holding their heads high amongst the more traditionally lauded members of the highly paid white collar caste. It doesn’t either that the intricacies of your product knowledge and industry expertise in casual conversation do little to captivate anyone other than potential buyers themselves. Still, it is time that the Salesman claims his due regard as the universal driving force of business development. Bankers, lawyers, and accountants beware!

Listen in during introductions in any upwardly mobile social gathering, and you will surely see that there is a direct relationship between the number of certificates on an office wall and eagerness to share auto-biographical professional details. The Salesman is a charming and equally proficient provider for his family, but he’d rather not get into the details of his profession for fear of drawing the conversation into an inevitable dead end. Members of the legal, medical, financial services and myriad other immediately recognizable professions get conciliatory nods of approval just for identifying their industry. The Salesman waits for his turn to come and says “I’m in sales” or possibly “I’m in insert product category sales” while praying internally for a lack of follow up questions. Then, it comes, “Oh, what do you sell?”, and the Salesman searches for the right words to gain understanding quickly without seeming standoffish or spurring further questions. All because he makes his money by persuading people to purchase a product that he strongly believes will be to their benefit. This trend of self-suppression can only be reversed by a concerted effort to declare our collective profession with pride. “I’m in sales, so I help people find the insert product type that best suits their needs!”