Quote:
Originally Posted by jtodd_fl
Great that you would jump at it. A wide range of experience is great. What I think makes someone with Sales experience unique is really the fact that it teaches a few key things:
- Working under pressure - in adverse or ambiguous circumstances
- Learning how to find value
- Communication - speaking the language of value
- Urgency
I now that other disciplines benefit from these traits, but the reality is that there is a component of "sales" in every leadership position. When you lead, you learn to find out what matters to people (employees, investors, customers, suppliers, anyone...), you communicate to them in their language of value (aligning them, motivating them, pushing them). These traits are universal and sales gives people a unique blend of all of these things at the same time. No one is taught the value of urgency or how to be comfortable with ambiguity. Engineers hate ambiguity by nature, their internal language of value is "rightness" or "efficiency" or some other scientifically correct thing. Financiers are black and white people, there are laws and regulations and standards that explain how to do most of it. The people that excel in ANY field are the ones that take the necessaries and add a whopping dose of the intangibles. Someone who is technically proficient, but also adept at communicating and works with a sense of urgency and can quickly take a problem apart and build a solution to it (whether it is a technical problem, a financial one, a marketing one, a cultural one, an organizational one... w/e) is priceless
Damn... that was going to be short...
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I think everyone should be in a direct sales position early on in their lives. Working face to face with a decision maker, trying to get them to make a decision that benefits you, while showing them how the same decision benefits them is something everyone does almost on a daily basis.
Doing it to make money forces you to analyze what your saying and the different results from the minor changes you make. It enlightens you to what people really want to hear, what they really value, what makes them feel important, (which is more often than not, a buyer's highest need) what gets them to trust you, etc... Doing all that without lying or bullying is an art form.
Verbiage take note of all your friends who "hate selling" and check out where they are in 10 years. If they are employed, i'd bet the lion's share are in retail or a cube farm. The smaller percentage may be in a professional position; Dr, Accounting, Engineer, etc...
We sell our selves every day, whether it be our occupation, to advance ourselves within our occupation, to get better service from the wait staff, to get an upgrade on a flight seat, to get out of a ticket, etc.... every day. Those who excel at direct face to face sales have a fierce arrow in their quiver that can offer them piece of mind. The ability to go anywhere in the world and sell anything is a very reassuring quality to have as a core personalty trait.
I can still hear my father saying... "if you can do that, you can control your own destiny."