Company Blog

No One Likes the Salesman

by Adam Zack — August 24, 2016

It always seemed a chore to have to take a meeting with someone trying to sell you something.

Lawyer. Real Estate Agent. Car Salesman. Union Leader. Tax Auditor. Politician. Advertising Salespeople. These are among the most disliked professions that normal Americans cringe at having to deal with. Especially in business, it always seemed a chore to have to take a meeting with someone trying to sell you something. I always rationalized that they were just doing their job, like I was doing mine, and common courtesy and respect led me to take the meetings, return the calls and listen to the spiel. But it wasn’t easy, as 80% of the sales people were there for their agenda, which rarely intersected with mine. I couldn’t blame them for doing their job – after all they had a boss on their ass saying “Did you call on XYZ market?” The great differentiator was the sales person who did their homework and really made the case for WHY their service would help me. I would start with a skeptical mindset, wondering if they could convince me to spend my slim budget. The great ones showed no pressure, no quota, no “salesmanship”. I have come to realize that the best salespeople are really not salespeople at all. Yes, it’s their objective for me to use their product or service, but what they were really selling was a partnership. If they helped me be more successful, then they were successful. If my success paid for their service, then we both won. DW and I had this discussion last week, and while much of the time I feel like the worst salesman in the world, what really excites me is when our marketing ideas really work for our clients. The great Amba Gale put it this way:

It’s what I consider the difference to be between “sales” (persuasion, coercion, domination, arguing for, convincing) and “enrollment” (authentic sharing, creating possibility for another, generating conversations in which others can freely commit and are called to do so, coming from being of service, whole – to – whole, etc)

So here’s to enrolling and partnering and never being on the list of most disliked persons.