I work in sales. This creates an awkward moment when I meet people I studied with. Those people with whom I spent hours and hours discussing how to save the world.
How did I end up this low? Nobody asks directly, but I can feel it. I have two masters’ degrees and international working experience, but I am in sales. What went wrong?
Salesperson: The Bottom of the Social Strata
The stereotypical image of a salesperson is not flattering. We might be thinking of the door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman, whose strongest persuasion skill is his foot blocking the closing door. Something that none of us has ever experienced, but the image prevails. Our firsthand experience is hard sales on the phone, the unstoppable pitch, which does not give us a civilized chance to cut the call. The cartoonish sales professional is a dubious person, whose only aspiration behind his fake smile is to get your money. This brand is confirmed in the tragic figure of Willy Loman in “The Death of Salesman,” the play by Arthur Miller. The best way Willy sees he can serve his family is to take his own life.
These negative perceptions translate directly to a level of respect for sales profession. A recent survey in Finland (Suomen Kuvalehti 2018) listed the most appreciated and least respected professions. The top 10 was dominated by health care professionals, surgeons, midwives, dentists. As may be expected, our tragic salespeople were all in the very bottom of this list. I must admit that I was surprised how low. Some of the sales functions were clearly beaten by fur farmers, collections officers and parking controllers. (Please apologize my prejudice against these professions, I share your pain).
The situation is not improved by the lack of higher education available to the field. In the business universities, there is most likely one course concentrating on sales management. Normal sales courses are usually presentations of tactics. Attempting to make these tactics academic might make it all seem ridiculous. Salvation has been found in mathematic formulas which, for example, measure the conversion of calls to sales figures, sales forecasting and budgeting. Unfortunately, to salespeople, these formulas are creations of engineers, a very highly appreciated group of professionals in Finland,
A Salesperson Is An Empathetic Problem-Solver
So far, we have concluded that sales is a low-esteemed, uneducated profession, in which only the lowest strata of society end up. On the other hand, our welfare society would not work without this fishy work force. In businesses, company budgets are based on expected sales. Product development should take into consideration first-hand information of clients’ needs and expectations. Marketing campaigns, without deep knowledge of target group values, are a waste of money. Sales staff, with their daily client contacts, have the quality information needed for these, besides also being the muscle to run the organization.
When we review studies about salespeople, we find a surprisingly different character to his stereotype. Salespeople are not all about money. The features they value most in their job are independence, providing service and dealing with people (73%), while earnings represent 17%. With the current social underestimation of the profession, it is understandable that job satisfaction, status and promotion prospects are less valued and represent together only 10% of the total.
On the other hand, if we make a deep dive into what are the qualities essential for selling at the senior level, the U.S researchers found two main qualities decades ago: empathy and ego drive. Empathy makes it possible to understand a customer’s problems and needs. Ego drive, on the other hand, is defined as a need to make a sale in a personal way, not merely for money. As we all know, nobody wants to buy anything from the vacuum cleaner man. There are no sales without true interest in your clients. Successful salespeople solve problems for their partners.
Salespeople Facilitate Life-Enhancing and -Saving Solutions
For example, in my job as a conference manager I sell our venue for scientific conferences. Many times, we are working in co-operation with highly respected professor in our process trying to get the event to Finland. Our sales pitch is a promotion of local knowledge and science. And when we succeed, the final result is invaluable. Not only local businesses have opportunity to trade their services for millions. When these experts meet, life-saving solutions are made possible, thanks to the magic of face to face encounters.
Speaking of Inclusion
We should get over the image of the 1950’s vacuum cleaner man and start giving sales people real credit for the work they do. Thanks to their efforts we have functioning societies. No more awkward moments of silence but loud cheering for the great work salespeople do.
