So you think you don’t work in sales? Think again!

Recently my wife and I had a conversation about careers and I expressed to her that I have always worked in sales. She smiled and said; no you were not in sales, you were a manager!

I stopped for a second and realized that from the outside it could have looked as if I was not in sales while I was managing a market and recruiting new talent. Based on that thought I tried to find a job that I felt had no selling involved. I have to be honest and share that I really had a hard time. At some level we all work in sales, in many cases that fact is forgotten which can results in poor performance.  Many people work in sales and don’t know it; this goes for most maintenance staff for example. A strong staff will help retain more residents but they often don’t have a financial interest in the property’s performance. So they don’t feel like they work in sales.

Here is my view; if you not doing your work 100% can prevent a sale from taking place or impact a customer’s experience then you work in sales and you should know it! This can be as simple as keeping a place looking great or being courteous to residents. The entire staff impacts the selling of the product you offer so they all work in sales.

I also hear execs and manager talk about their “sales teams” not getting things done. One of the most common complaints I have read about relates to the staff not picking up the phone or not returning messages. Is that due to laziness? Work overload? Or simply because they don’t see the costs associated with this issue? It is important for execs and managers to get their teams to “buy into” the value and costs associated with a top notch work ethic. It is important for them to fight “corporate distractions” like reports and never ending strategic calls to spend time interacting with your staff. To do that, you have to put your sales hat on. The CEO of a company has to get the board to buy into his strategies so he gets the needed support to carry it through. The board expects their investment to bare fruits. This view has to run through the entire organization if you want to create exceptional performance.

There are mostly 2 types of people that don’t think they are in sales:

1/ Arrogant; these people believe that their position and power to fire is enough to demand performance. It usually results in a gap between that person and their direct reports. The type of risks associated with such attitude is a staff that is not loyal and disgruntle. The best managers have teams that buy into them, their vision and a common goal.

2/ Uninformed; throughout any organization there is always a point where there is a paying customer. That customer expects a certain level of performance in exchange for their investment into that company. In these companies there is a whole team of people that are not customer facing but directly impact the customer’s experience. A simple example would be how a person in accounting may be “disrupted” by a “sales guy” asking for a review of an account. The time that accounting person takes to ask the right questions about what is needed can impact the relationship between that sales person and the client (the sales person does not always know exactly what they need...). It is always important to remind all parties to an organization that has paying customers that they work in sales!

 

Next blog; Who is your customer?