Saturday, June 07, 2008

Yes! You are in Sales!

I was recently watching a small clip from Tom Peter's Blog titled 'Yes!You Are In Sales'.As Tom mesmerizes with his talk(we all know him for such talks!),he dwells on the overuse of the word 'Marketing' making sales look like a dirty job.As he goes on to say,"no matter what skills you have,which department or company you work for,no matter your job title,we all are salespeople".As rightly coined by Tom,we are all salespeople,either selling products,services,ideas,or ourselves.Somehow,sales has always been looked down upon by most people in India.I remember my days as a salesperson in Bombay when my sister introduced me as an engineer to one of her friends as she thought that my work was despicable and didn't want me to disclose it either!Salespeople & Organizations alike should be blamed for tarnishing the image of this job.We have seen an influx of unqualified salespeople loitering around the streets selling something or the other without even having any understanding of the product or an idea about their customers

In the United States Unlike India,sales had always occupied a special place in the society as a whole.In his seminal work Walter Friedman of Harvard Business School argues in his book 'Birth of the American Salesman' that America has been the pioneer of modern sales management-salesmanship in America had flourished due to multiple reasons.The emergence of salesmanship in the U.S. depended on a stable currency, the rule of law, the protection of private property, and the availability of credit. These were all aspects of the American economic system. But what made the U.S. unique was the scale of American firms that were founded in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These massive manufacturing concerns, which produced tremendous numbers of business machines, appliances, and cars, hired salesmen in the hundreds in some cases, and even thousands in others, to create demand for their products. These goods, all pushed by aggressive salesmanship, distinguished the American economy by their early appearance and widespread purchase'

India never had a culture of acceptance of salespeople as a respectable profession in their society(apart from a few big cities)though we all are selling in some way or the other.But having said this,we are moving toward a selling economy similar to how America did in the mid of 2oth century.And we do expect to see more acceptability in our society of salesmanship as a profession too!

3 comments:

Aditi said...

I don't know much abt the nuances of sales as a profession. But I agree with the fact that common men are still ignorant about the brighter side of the profession. But if u say it's not a job worth mentioning in public, perhaps you are wrong. Selling is an art and it needs acumen and intelligence...those who know about it, won't deny. Had it not been a "saleable" profession or whichever way you put it, the brands would have never been our lifestyle

Unknown said...

Yes ,you are in sales is simply amazing .By putting your words across you have
not only expressed your views but also you have helped many others unknowingly.
I believe you have boasted the morale of many others those who earn their living from this kind of job and have taken sales as a proffession in their lives.
Your efforts are highly appreciated

Deep Banerjee said...

Absolutely right .... I tend to blow the roof when people make a mockery of our profession. We are the revenue earners. Its because of us that people in other functional areas (including the finance guys) exist.