Exerpt from Chapter 1 - Is Sales for You?
“Of those to much is given, much is required.”
- Luke 12:48 as paraphrased by John F. Kennedy
If I heard it once, I heard it a thousand times. “I wish I were in Sales…you guys make all the money.” I bite my lip. There is not a more envied position in the corporate world. Managers who were “promoted” out of sales who wish they were in sales again while many others in an organization wish they had an opportunity to become a sales person.
Personally, I can understand why non-sales people are envious of sales people. Aside from running the company, I could not imagine doing anything else in any organization. As mentioned earlier, it is my belief that the best sales people act like a “small business owner” without the ownership responsibility. In essence, the salespeople are hedging their financial risk by outsourcing a lot of the small business headaches and hassles (i.e. – finding and managing employees, employee benefits, financial concerns, and real estate issues) to the company. The company assumes those issues so the sales person can drive sales revenue for the company and income for themselves.
The ownership mentality results in sales people that make smart choices. They spend the company’s money as if it were their own and make efficient use of their time. This ownership mentality as sales people is the reason that the majority of the CEO’s and business owners were involved with sales at one point in their career. If you don’t have this “small business owner” mentality, you won’t be high performer and you won’t be in sales long......