Everyone's wary of a salesman. The funniest thing is that even a salesman would avoid meeting another salesman. Why?
I guess people generally hate the idea of being sold to, of being led down the path to spend on something they don't need. Just look at all the people trying to shove their wares to you at the department store, especially at the fragrance department.
I'm like everyone else. I'll choose what I buy and where I buy it thank you very much. And yet I know that in reality we're all salesmen whether we like it or not.
I say that because we're always trying to convince others that we are nice people, that we have good intentions, that our idea is the best. There's a term for it - its called selling. On the other side we hope somebody will 'buy' what we sell, to be convinced that we are as nice as we say, that our idea is as good as we claim, that our church is better than the other one, etc etc.
Ever interviewed for a job? Well, you were selling. If you're good, they'll buy. If not, hasta la vista baby. What we're selling is not the point. The point is that whether you're trying to convince someone to hire you or you're selling shampoo, the thought processes are virtually identical. Think about it.
So next time if someone says "Salesmen are scum," ask them if they've really thought things through.
(Janet, I hope you're reading this :D)
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5 comments:
Well said buddy. I realize that a while ago too. Very obvious especially when trying to court a girl..... you don't even need a product.
Hi Kay, thanks for dropping by. Dating... hmm wouldn't the product be you? :)
Yes, we all sell. It's part of everyone's job, nay LIFE description. But only salesmen are talentless enough to call it their MAIN JOB.
So it attracts the unskilled, the uncivilized, the desperate, the narcissistic and the plain nasty. This goes for brokers as well. AVOID.
Steve jobs, Richard Branson, Alan sugar, all essentially salesmen, not sure the above description is entirely fair. Why does sales become synonymous with dodgy dealing. If the products good and can add value to peoples lives or business then that doesn't require any lack of integrity. The above comment either written by someone who is bitter on account of having been bitten by a shark (of which many swim in all professions), or an academic who bitter with jealousy cant bare the uneducated far surpassing his meagre earnings having wasted years of his life studying an impractical subject which can't be applied to the real world. A bitter man indeed.
That's all very easy say until you see first hand the results of your salesmanship. I sell paint at a big chain hardware store. Once a woman came in looking for done paint for her bedroom. She wanted to give her bedroom some color so she picked out a deep burgundy for an accent wall. She only needed a quart so I convinced here to buy the most expensive stuff. I told her how well it was going to work and how happy she would be with the results, and she bought it all the way. The next day she came back to the store. She complained to another salesmen about the paint I sold her. Apparently it didn't go on very smoothly, and ended up looking terrible. My coworker backed up my claims to the paints integrity, and convinced her she needed better rollers and brushes. She left the store with a new quart (2 quarts is about the same price as a whole gallon) as well as a pack of our best rollers, a few premium brushes, and the promise that her woes would be solved. The next day I saw her in our solvent isle, and I asked her how everything went. She told me her wall still looked terrible. Her daughter even comented on how bad the paint looked. Now she was looking for a way to remove the paint that had bonded itself to her wooden baseboard (this paint sticks to surfaces like no other). Worse yet she wanted to buy another quart of paint. She wasn't even mad that the paint I sold her had failed to do what I promised it would. It was just another thing in her life that had failed to hold up it's end, and I was just another son of a bitch who sold her a pack of lies.
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