A new year and a new decade - I would even say a new age - an age that strives to move forward and to leave behind the remnants of the old age - an age where things we held in esteem have cracked and crumpled under the strain of maintaining their facade.
Isn't it time that we in professional selling recognised our own facade as well? Isn't it time that we stopped pretending that selling is a profession - like medicine or law or engineering? It isn't - and despite the plethora of institutes and associations - I do not see a time when it will become so.
There are many professionals who sell but what defines a sales person is more than just knowledge of a subject or a body of knowledge or a way of doing things. It is a synergy of many things.
It is IQ - which is the technical knowledge that we bring of our service or product or our planning and sales processes but more than that it is also EQ - the ability to connect, involve, engage, create trust, establish a relationship.
It is rapport, integrity, sincerity, it is service, it is a duty of care, it is vision, enthusiasm, courage, persistence, patience. It is idealism and pragmatism. It is innovation and adaption and the ability to go on when others would turn back. It is initiated by financial reward but then we go beyond just money. It is hope and it is the ability to rise from defeat and rejection and scale the heights of success. It requires boldness - and the future belongs to the bold.
It is all these things and how can these things be condensed into something as limited as a 'profession'.
Selling is more than just a profession - and it's time we let people know that - it is a vocation and a calling. It's not for the many but the few who are brave enough and foolish enough to go where many others fear to and accomplish that which many can not. It is for those who would change the world by what they bring to the market. It is for those who will bring this world from it's financial knees to where we can find prosperity once again.
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