Why are you a Salesperson?

Why are you a Salesperson?

Have you ever really thought about this?

Why did you decide to be a salesperson?

• Was it by choice?
• Was it because it was the only job option there was?
• Was it because the job was so shiny?
• Was it because you could have a busier life and not so much behind a desk?
• Was it because you could have a car?

Don’t be surprised by the questions, but they are the ones I sometimes ask in sales training courses.

In sales, of course, it takes above-average motivation to get up every day and be willing to win or lose business cases, pick up a phone to set up meetings, and take several “no’s” until we get a “yes.

One thing that brings sales professionals, not only them, down the most is the fear of rejection.
At an early stage of the process, when we start our career in the sales world, sometimes this situation is debilitating to our success.

I have been there too, and I remember that my sales career went nowhere until I overcame this barrier.

Things didn’t go very well until I learned to mentally separate the “rejection” from my person and attribute it solely to my product and service.

There are several ways to overcome this; many are fantastic theories, but in my view, nothing is more effective than gaining “the callus.”

This is one of the situations in sales that only those who go through it understand – nothing replaces the concrete experience of trying to set up sales meetings or visits to clients for days on end and getting systematically turned down.

Now, like this one, several situations bring us down in the world of sales, whether they are psychological or more operational in nature.

The point is often to go back to the basics and rediscover what we enjoy about being a salesperson.
My experience as a salesperson, and later in leading sales teams, is that motivation has to come from inside. Beyond the material side, it has to link to specific emotional components of the profession.

A salesperson may not like being in sales to begin with, but once he gets a taste for it, for whatever reason, nothing stops him.

After this, he has to fine-tune the more technical selling process and the tools he uses, whether operational or more in the psychological domain.

Now, as a friend of mine says, the pleasure of being a salesperson is not sold in pills at the pharmacy.
This week, stop to think. What do you like about the sales profession?
Go back to the basics and rediscover your emotion in the act of selling! And if you have the opportunity, renew your knowledge by taking some sales training.

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Also published on Medium.