How not to sell anything

 Sales and marketing has never been my strong suit. I've often felt like sales was a profession full of snakes who would try to sell anything to anyone in order to make a quick buck. Incredibly recently I have had my point of view radically reset. You see, the stereotypes aren't necessarily wrong, but they aren't about sales or marketing people: they're about con artists. Selling anything to anyone at any price you can isn't sales. No, no, that's just scamming, plain and simple.

Sales is a complex beast. It's knowing what you can do, figuring out who needs it, and puzzling together just how you fit in. Good sales isn't just exchanging money for a product, it's building a relationship to provide something to someone who needs it.

I'm going to switch gears here a bit and just talk about business people, generally. Often times, business leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Bowing and cow-towing to the almighty god-numbers of the stock market and laying any shred of dignity atop the sacrificial altar of shareholder dignity seems to be the raison d'etre of every person in the fortune 500 and it infuriates me. But, and it's a sizable but, that is not what business is. Through the course of this quarter I have been convinced that business is building something to serve others. It serves one's own interest, yes, after all we do all need to make a living. But a good business serves many people's many needs. It employs people, proving salary and benefits to those who need them. It provides products and services to those who need them. Business is an integral part of community, where "business" is simply the ways by which we support each other in our society. 

Perhaps soon I'll be doing my own sales, building my own business, and serving my own community. What a dream!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Startup.com

 Startup.com drove me completely insane. These people did not have it together, seemed to really only have half of a clue as to what they were doing and they brought together all of these people with this half baked idea and then failed. Catastrophically. Towards the beginning of the film there was a potential investor that our boys Kaleil and Tom had gone to go get some money from who told them they had a bad idea that wasn't going to be financially viable. After leaving Kaleil proceeds to say "this guy doesn't get it" but I must say: If after leaving an investment meeting you have to say "this guy doesn't get it" then perhaps you should reconsider your position. Maybe the idea is bad, maybe you presented it poorly. Either way your takeaway should be that you need to rethink and refine either your plan or approach before you move forward. Later on they're in a big meeting trying to get a huge investment and they literally had their lawyer on speake
Read more

Ideas for Business

 Or: A Treatise on Why I Shouldn't Do That Production Consultancy Lots of businesses would love to throw events from punching up the annual company retreat to a massive product reveal. These companies often do not have any experience in putting on an event and have no idea where to start or what is in scope for them. I could bring my extensive experience in the world of event production to get companies like the best event for the lowest cost so they don't have to spend exorbitant sums on the major players in the industry. Or they could just hire TPN and be done with it. Polling Software Have you ever just wanted to do some simple little survey to find out something for work or just with your friends? Have you then found that the "simple" thing you want is locked behind a paywall, or just functionally impossible in the software you have? You bounce around looking for another one and another one and eventually you resign yourself to just sending that group text instea
Read more