Sales, How Revolting!
| Category: Marketing | Date: 2003-05-06 |
From the time I was old enough to grasp the concept of sales I knew I wanted to be involved. At the tender age
of 17, I was still under the false impression that sales and marketing were the same thing. Eventually I went to school for a specialized degree in business/marketing, while working part-time selling home fire safety systems and found out a very distressing fact. I'm not a salesman. I enjoyed observing them in action but when it came right down to it, I found the act of direct sales completely repulsive, and I still do today. I gave up on my dream
of being another J. Paul Getty (as I thought I needed to be a salesman to succeed) and discovered an even
bigger love, "Computers". They were my true desire now. I was still fascinated by Sales and Marketing, but
now believed that success was only a pipe dream, because I just didn't have what it takes to be a salesman. You see, even with a formal education, somewhere in the back of my I had convinced myself that sales and marketing were one and the same thing.
Eventually, I started doing programming on the side, but still had an extreme phobia about sales and selling
people on my services. Then in 1991 I picked up a book on vacation called "Marketing Your Services". I
rediscovered the fact that marketing and sales are not the same and I don't need to be a high-pressure
salesman to market my talents. I found something called "relationship sales" and "networking". Sales is sales, right? You have to convince the customer to buy what you have to sale. Wrong!
You know the high-pressure sale is hard on everyone involved. The "burnout" statistics are so high that
only 5% of high-pressure sales people stay with it for life. But it's not only hard on the salesperson, it's
hard on the customer too. Have you ever sat through a home vacuum cleaner demonstration? Most of these people are hardcore pros. They have to be to last even a year.
For the potential victim, and I say that with all sincerity, it's just like being lined up for the firing squad. You know it's coming and feel completely helpless to stop it. This is how I pictured marketing until I read the book. It's not like I didn't study the difference in school. I can't remember whether I forgot it, just didn't believe it, or I simply just didn't get it. No matter, it was what it was and I wanted no part of it anymore.
In 1997, I discovered the business side of the Internet. Some small part of me was still crying out for the dream. The "J. Paul Getty" dream. I saw an opportunity and I wanted to get in on it. With time constraints, two jobs and a family who demands my attention, I very slowly got into HTML, Perl and eventually Flash and SQL. But what good is it going to do me. I already had a great job that I wouldn't leave for another. So I decided I would set up a web site and sell what I have learned. So I wrote attention getting headlines and hard selling copy. I figured Internet sales would be much easier, because there was no face-to-face pressure. I could sell my services on my web page. Too bad it's not that easy. People are inquisitive, curious and skeptical. I found myself getting emails about this and that. No Big Deal. I can answer emails. Then I started getting phone calls.
Well, this requires a more personal sales touch. It's getting all too familiar now. The problem was I couldn't back up my hardcore sales pitch in a more personal manner.
I just couldn't figure it out, even with reading all about it. How can this be happening again? What is the answer? I went back and read that book that I had read years before, just one more time to refresh my memory. It clicked, "Relationship Sales". I need to learn to relate better not sell! I'm lousy at direct one-on-one sales, but I can certainly relate to people if I'm not trying to sell them.
This gave me a new outlook on sales. Selling, in it's most basic sense is the one-on-one process of building
a relationship between seller and prospect. The "good" sale comes after both parties involved discover that a
relationship has been built. I figured it out. Selling and marketing are not one and the same, however they
are a part of each other, meaning one cannot prosper without the other. They're quite synergistic you know,
empowering each other to reach their final goal:
The Sale.
About the author.
howrevolting@greatdesignz.com
http://www,greatdesignz.com
of 17, I was still under the false impression that sales and marketing were the same thing. Eventually I went to school for a specialized degree in business/marketing, while working part-time selling home fire safety systems and found out a very distressing fact. I'm not a salesman. I enjoyed observing them in action but when it came right down to it, I found the act of direct sales completely repulsive, and I still do today. I gave up on my dream
of being another J. Paul Getty (as I thought I needed to be a salesman to succeed) and discovered an even
bigger love, "Computers". They were my true desire now. I was still fascinated by Sales and Marketing, but
now believed that success was only a pipe dream, because I just didn't have what it takes to be a salesman. You see, even with a formal education, somewhere in the back of my I had convinced myself that sales and marketing were one and the same thing.
Eventually, I started doing programming on the side, but still had an extreme phobia about sales and selling
people on my services. Then in 1991 I picked up a book on vacation called "Marketing Your Services". I
rediscovered the fact that marketing and sales are not the same and I don't need to be a high-pressure
salesman to market my talents. I found something called "relationship sales" and "networking". Sales is sales, right? You have to convince the customer to buy what you have to sale. Wrong!
You know the high-pressure sale is hard on everyone involved. The "burnout" statistics are so high that
only 5% of high-pressure sales people stay with it for life. But it's not only hard on the salesperson, it's
hard on the customer too. Have you ever sat through a home vacuum cleaner demonstration? Most of these people are hardcore pros. They have to be to last even a year.
For the potential victim, and I say that with all sincerity, it's just like being lined up for the firing squad. You know it's coming and feel completely helpless to stop it. This is how I pictured marketing until I read the book. It's not like I didn't study the difference in school. I can't remember whether I forgot it, just didn't believe it, or I simply just didn't get it. No matter, it was what it was and I wanted no part of it anymore.
In 1997, I discovered the business side of the Internet. Some small part of me was still crying out for the dream. The "J. Paul Getty" dream. I saw an opportunity and I wanted to get in on it. With time constraints, two jobs and a family who demands my attention, I very slowly got into HTML, Perl and eventually Flash and SQL. But what good is it going to do me. I already had a great job that I wouldn't leave for another. So I decided I would set up a web site and sell what I have learned. So I wrote attention getting headlines and hard selling copy. I figured Internet sales would be much easier, because there was no face-to-face pressure. I could sell my services on my web page. Too bad it's not that easy. People are inquisitive, curious and skeptical. I found myself getting emails about this and that. No Big Deal. I can answer emails. Then I started getting phone calls.
Well, this requires a more personal sales touch. It's getting all too familiar now. The problem was I couldn't back up my hardcore sales pitch in a more personal manner.
I just couldn't figure it out, even with reading all about it. How can this be happening again? What is the answer? I went back and read that book that I had read years before, just one more time to refresh my memory. It clicked, "Relationship Sales". I need to learn to relate better not sell! I'm lousy at direct one-on-one sales, but I can certainly relate to people if I'm not trying to sell them.
This gave me a new outlook on sales. Selling, in it's most basic sense is the one-on-one process of building
a relationship between seller and prospect. The "good" sale comes after both parties involved discover that a
relationship has been built. I figured it out. Selling and marketing are not one and the same, however they
are a part of each other, meaning one cannot prosper without the other. They're quite synergistic you know,
empowering each other to reach their final goal:
The Sale.
About the author.
howrevolting@greatdesignz.com
http://www,greatdesignz.com
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