Your Selling Skill Is The Best Insurance Against Unemployment
First, I like to clear the misconception that:
1. Sales is the responsibility of only the salesmen.
2. Successful sales people are annoying, aggressive and customer-chasing machines.
Let's look at 2 examples.
Example To My First Point A legal consultant spent days going to seminars prospecting for business. He was so successful he received many phone calls to his office. He puts his secretary in-charge to take those phone calls and to arrange for the appropriate time for the prospects to come to see him.
Unfortunately, the secretary was not properly trained to handle phone calls professionally and turned all the callers off. This legal consultant maybe good at convincing people but not too smart in managing people.
Sales in an organisation is never a single act. In the above example, the actual selling has not even started.
Example To My Second Point You are an accountant in a small firm. You made an appointment with your spouse a week ago to take him/her out for dinner. When the day arrives, an incident happened and you have to resolve the crisis immediately. You forgot the appointment until your spouse called.
Realising that you have totally forgotten the appointment, your mind races quickly to find the reasons to explain to your spouse and to apologise to him/her.
She accepted your apology but that was not over. You make another appointment for tomorrow.
And when that tomorrow comes, you arrived at the destination 10 minutes earlier and both of you had a good dinner and ended with positive experience.
Congratulation, you just managed to sell successfully and end up with a happy customer - your spouse.
Did you realise something common in the above examples?
Everyday, we are selling without realizing it
Everyday, at every single moment in our lives we are selling to our spouse, bosses, colleagues, our friends without consciously realising it.
Allow me to redefine the true meaning of sales so we can see it in different light.
"Selling is a basic human quality to communicate and deliver appropriate information to our chosen audience so they are informed and convinced that they need can be satisfied by accepting what we have to offer."
Sales is not a single activity. It is a process.
Trying to convince someone with a product, service or ideas is merely a small part in the communication process ( see picture below).
Everything that happened trying to accomplish this act is within the sales process cycle.
All professional sales activities takes place within this process whether there is only a single sales person or a sales team in a complex organisation.
Many non-sales people do not like selling due to the fear of facing customers and rejections. This is due to the misconception that:
(1) sales is a single contact activity that defines results immediately and
(2) not realising that we as human being are selling ideas each and every single day.
Good and successful sales people are not necessary aggressive people with no fear of facing customers. They are successful because: (1) they understand that sales is a process, (2) they know their own limitation, (3) they are able to strengthen other parts of sales process to support them while learning to overcome their own fears through the help of their bosses, colleagues, team mates and a desire to become a better presenter.
. Depending on the type of products and services an organisation has to offer, prudent sales leaders design sales processes that are able to tap the strength of his team members and supporting staff to bring out their basic human traits at different points in those processes.
They do not simply rely solely on their champion salesmen to get the job done.
Being able to sell is to be able to present your ideas clearly and concisely either on a personal level or at team and process level to address the needs of your audience.
A baby cries to let the mother know he/she is hungry. The ability to sell and convince is a natural human trait, unfortunately often misunderstood to be some special skills.
Going into an interview to convince your potential employer you are the right person uses the exact same process as would a door to door salesman trying to convince his potential buyer. If you are able to convince your potential employer you get the job.
Developing your skills to convince others is a vital life skill and especially in this era where job security no longer exists due to advancement in artificial intelligence and machine automation.
And that is why your sales skill is your best insurance against unemployment.
