Sales, Leadership, & Success

Oct 26, 2016
4 min read

People have often asked me what I want to be when I grow up. As a child, I answered astronaut, police officer, firemen, and President of the US. I just turned 26 and I am not any of those things. This is not something to be disappointed by because this is a question that we all continually work on. It is important to remember that success is about the journey and process, not the destination or result. As I heard on one of my favorite podcasts the other day, when it comes to success and being successful, “the rent is due every day”.

We often look at examples, like Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates or Mark Cuban, and think that success can and will happen overnight. But this is a mere facade, barely scratching the surface of what it took for these people to reach success. What people see is the end result of years of work that they poured their blood, sweat, and tears into. Many people in their 20’s truly believe that they are going to reach success within a year of graduating college. While possible, this is highly unlikely. Success is a process that takes time, determination, and vision.

In college, if someone asked me what I wanted to do after graduation, I would not have answered with sales and marketing. That doesn’t sound as sexy as being a CEO of a major company or creating an innovative way to turn waste and CO2 into usable energy. In addition, sales has been stuck with the image of the slimy used car salesmen who doesn’t care about the customer or client and only wants to benefit his or her self for far too long. Without a doubt, sales has taught me more about business, people, and life in a condensed amount of time than I would have learned in nearly any other role. Sales needs and deserves a new image and understanding, everything in life is sales. Sales, when done correctly, is a noble and beneficial pursuit for all.

So this brings up the question of what is the benchmark for sales. Over the past few years, I have trained hundreds of people in sales and marketing; from new folks with no experience, to experienced sales and marketing folks. The message I use to train is slightly different for different people at different stages, but the core message is the same. Sales is all about helping people, plain and simple. It is not about having the skill or charisma to magically change peoples’ minds to buy a product or service and to make the sale and get paid. Sales is about having the courage to engage someone in a conversation about something that you think will truly benefit them. The greatest sales people are genuinely concerned with their customer’s/client’s best interests and feel that they can truly help them.

Most of us have likely heard the famous quotes by Alec Baldwin in Glenn Gary Glenn Ross “coffee is for closers” and “always be closing”. This exemplifies hard sales and shows sales having a wholly result focused, end justify the means. Actually, the best sales people I know are not really sales people, at least by the standard definition. They may work in sales or have a sales-like title, but their primary motivation is not sales or money. Their primary motivation is taking care of other people, helping others, and setting a good example. They know that these correct actions will lead to appropriate benefits and financial compensation. This sounds a lot like how most of us would describe a great leader.

If someone working in sales can picture that they are leading others towards their best interest, they not only have happier customers and clients, but they get better results too. Sales can elevate people to become leaders. Sales is about leading by example, for both your customers/clients and your sales team/company. Sales is about taking care of people. Sales is about having a vision and creating goals to help that vision become a reality. Sales is about improving the lives of others and teaching others to do what you do, one person at a time. Sales is about leadership.

I believe that Mark Cuban is correct in arguing that it would benefit all young people to start off their careers in sales. Sales gives us invaluable experiences that teach us about people and life in general, both the good parts and the bad. Sales needs a paradigm shift away from the 1980’s and 1990’s notion of hard sales. Sales needs and deserves a paradigm shift towards leadership and the creation of the leaders that will run our present and future companies, organizations, and even government. Success will not happen overnight, it takes years of “paying the rent”. “The rent is due every day”, and the best way to pay that rent is by holding yourself to the highest standard, living and striving for the best example of leadership possible, and elevating others to do the same.