The High Correlation Between Sales and Self Improvement
By: Brian Kim - March 5, 2007
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If you’re an avid reader of popular self improvement books, you might have noticed that a lot of the authors, Jim Rohn (mentor to Tony Robbins), Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar, etc., have a strong background in sales.
The reason why? It’s pretty simple.
Sales naturally leads you on the path to self improvement.
Selling is one of the most misunderstood professions in the world. People don’t want to say it out loud, but there is a general consensus among the majority that sales does not rank very high in terms of occupational prestige, but the people who think that are sorely mistaken.
Ask any businessman or woman what their opinion is on sales and you will find that every single one of them without a shadow of a doubt will agree on this one simple fact:
Sales is the lifeblood of any business.
Without sales, no business can function. That being said, sales is one of those few professions where only a minority are able to succeed, the reason being that the turnover rate is extremely high due to the amount of rejection that’s prevalent in sales. If you’ve ever had any experience in sales, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
I have the utmost respect for salesmen (not the unethical ones). The things they have to deal with day in and day out, the average person would probably not be able to handle it.
If you’ve ever been in sales, you’ll find that a lot of the principles in self improvement can be directly applied to your work. Here are just a few examples.
Incremental goal setting. You meet with your supervisor and discuss what your sales goals are for the month and you write them down. You get bonuses if you hit a certain quantity which in turn fuels your desire to achieve the goals you’ve written. A new salesman doesn’t come in expecting to make a million in a year (unless he’s super experienced). He starts small and works his way up.
MasterMind. Seek out any mentors or experienced salesmen in the office that are available to guide you. Don’t be shy in asking them. You’ll find that they’ll be more than willing to divulge enormous amounts of information that’s helped them if you just ask them with sincerity. Take them out to lunch and pick their brain. You’ll find that the Pareto Principle will apply in any sales office. 20% of the salesmen will be making 80% of the sales. Find that 20% and stick to them like glue.
Reading. Brian Tracy, Og Mandino, Tom Hopkins – these will be some names that you’ll get familiar with if you’re really serious about sales. You’ll find yourself reading these books because selling for the most part, relies on basic fundamentals and if you can master them, you can apply them to sell just about anything. True, you will have to know your product inside out and there might be specialized knowledge you’ll have to learn from the company, but once you have the foundation of selling set, the rest comes easily.
I could go on and on - visualizing the close of the sale, being persistent (you haven’t sold anything in a day but you make one extra call and you made that sale), making a to-do list, time management, learning from your mistakes (you will make tons), etc.
What am I basically saying?
If you ever want to get a free education from the real world in self improvement, get a job in sales.
Sales is literally self improvement baptism by fire.
Sales forces you to become better.
It forces you to learn new information.
It forces you to apply that information.
It forces you to aim for a clear goal and to achieve it.
Why does it force you?
Because more often than not, when you’re working in sales, the bulk of your income comes from commission, so you have that extra "kick" to motivate you that most other jobs can't offer.
You have to constantly improve yourself every single day, whether it means being able to think better on you feet, developing a stronger game plan, or learning how to close more effectively and you will find that habit of constant improvement will carry itself over into other areas of your life.
Next time a salesman tries to sell you something, but you’re not interested, let them off the hook easy. Tell them you don’t want to waste their time and that you’re not interested and thank them for their time. You’ll be a bright light in their usual dark day :) Put yourself in their shoes for a week and I guarantee you that you’ll see them in a whole new light.
The point I want to get across is that sales WILL teach you the principles of self improvement.
It’s one the few occupations out there where you can take what you’ve learned and apply it to any other occupation and life as well. You learn interpersonal skills, how to build rapport with strangers, how to persuade people, etc. You’ll find that selling will help you anywhere in life and if you think about it, you’re selling a lot of the time in your life without even knowing it - convincing your friends to go snowboarding this weekend, selling yourself in a job interview, selling an idea you had for the company to your boss, etc.
I think everybody should study or even better, at least dip their toe in sales at some point in their life (preferably early on). It is a very good learning experience and I guarantee you that if you get some good solid experience in sales, you’ll be amazed at the positive impact it will make in your life.
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9 Responses to “The High Correlation Between Sales and Self Improvement”
March 5th, 2007 at
“If you ever want to get a free education from the real world in self improvement, get a job in sales. Sales is literally self improvement baptism by fire.”
I would advice against such an approach for certain types of people. Is not that the idea is wrong but it just doesn’t fit all kinds of psychologies. For example I know without a shadow of a doubt that I would be lousy in sales. The fire of this baptism will kill me
A better job for me, altho it might sound hypocritical, would be to teach people in sells how to do a better job, to give them pointers on how to approach certain types of customers, how to better speak their language, how to make themselves better understood. I might know how the best way to approach a certain type of person might be but this doesn’t means that I’m able to implement it. For that you need a certain assertiveness, a certain killer instinct, a certain ability to approach strangers. I don’t have this skills and even if I train them, I will never ever be as good as someone who has them innate.
March 6th, 2007 at
I understand where you’re coming from Peter and I agree with you when you talk about it not fitting with all kinds of psychologies. However, I have seen people who did not have the innate ability to approach strangers, but after getting some experience in sales, have learned to approach people as a result.
The ones who have it innate - of course they will always have the edge, but all I’m saying is there is a possibility of change for the better when it comes to sales. Never say never eh?
March 6th, 2007 at
if sales is the art of persusion then we are all engaged in selling in some part of our day. i studied Tom Hopkins. he is a very intriguing guy. sometimes even i do not want to buy soemthing i love to listen to a sales pitch and study what the method is. sometimes i can be mesmerized.
March 6th, 2007 at
Have you considered the other explanation, far more likely to my mind, that these self-help books are just an example of a sales-pitch? That the reason that ex-salesmen write self-help books isn’t because sales has given them insight into personal development, but that self-help books are a form of sales, and the best salesmen are likely to make their sales pitch the most effectively?
I think we need to distinguish between a source which can help you achieve genuine personal growth which requires nuance, understanding and deep insight, and a source which gives us a (temporary) boost or euphoria. Take Tony Robbins for example. Go to his seminars or listen to his speeches and you feel great, but this subsides rapidly and it has little lingering effect. It’s the chocolate ice cream of personal development. He is popular not because sales teaches you the principles of self development, but because sales teaches you how to sell snake-oil packaged as self development.
It sounds like someone asking why so many popular therapists have radio shows and concluding that to be a good therapist you need to work on radio. You’re examining qualities of popularity.
(I could be wrong. Just seemed like there was an angle you weren’t addressing.)
March 6th, 2007 at
Hi Adrian
I see your point. There’s no doubt that those authors having a background in sales can help when it comes to selling the books they’ve written.
However, if you think about it, all books are examples of a sales pitch. They need to be “sold” to the reader in order for them to pick it up and read it so if they have the background, why not use it? I see no problem with that.
Like you stated, there will always be those who sell snake-oil packaged as self development. That being said, I think it’s up to the customer to decide what sources to look into. The authors I’ve highlighted - Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar, Tom Hopkins - they all get a thumbs up from me.
All I’m saying is that if you’re successful in sales, taking those principles and applying them to self improvement and goal achievement just seems like the next natural step.
Thank you very much for your comments. You brought up some really good points to think about.
Brian
March 18th, 2007 at
I read ‘Guide to Investing’ by R Kiyosaki a few years back, and I became hellbent on wanting to start my professional career in sales. Logical thought sequence at the time was, do sales, become good at it and then move onto building my own business. Boy, how naive was I. I failed and I failed miserably (at sales that is). Mind you I dont really regret the time I lost (about 1.5 years).
Im a telecom Engineer by profession, Ive now been in the industry for about 2 years, and having recently discovered personal development I can see how sales fits in. I’ll give sales another go in about 4-5 years once I have solid technical knowledge and understanding. For those readers considering doing a similar thing in their fields, take up toastmasters and develop your communications skills.
Kind Regards
Fusebox
April 10th, 2007 at
[…] BrianKim.com, on the same topic, says it this way: If you ever want to get a free education from the real world in self improvement, get a job in sales. Sales is literally self improvement baptism by fire. […]
August 27th, 2007 at
I think Adrian does bring a valuable point. Most of the self-help literature is from sales pros. It’s like they define what self-improvement is. That just seems weird. There’s really no outside checks and balances. Zig agrees with Tom and Tom agrees with Brian (Tracy) and Brian agrees with Zig–so there you go they must be right! Ha!
One I can think of that isn’t a salesman by trade is Dr. Stephen Covey.
Sales has been the hardest skill for me to learn. I seem to get along with people great, until you add the fact that I need to get money from them to survive. Yikes! Sales is tough. All of a sudden I’m a walking conflict of interests. Sure I believe in the product, sure I use it myself, sure I would still use it if I wasn’t selling it. But how to persuade others to use it, that’s the key. The key I haven’t found yet.
I also have the utmost respect for sales champions. They are very good at what they do. And I do believe that what they do is help people. Sometimes I feel, though, that our culture is severely over-marketed to. So at the end of the day people don’t know who to trust. Even their friends. We’ve learned not to trust people where sales is concerned. Perhaps thats just my viewpoint though and that’s why I fail at sales.
Anyway, I’m not blaming sales. It’s just something I stink at. It saddens me that I stink at it because I see the most return for my investment with sales. But, my passion is just not there.
August 27th, 2007 at
Back to the point of where we get our self-improvement info. These guys all agree that sales is the best profession and that we all do it all day long. It would be nice if people who weren’t sales champions would write about self-improvement. Maybe the idea of self-improvement was made up by sales pros to sell books
Maybe.
Combat helicopter pilots face a lot of “rejection” (mainly in the form of being shot at) But, I don’t see all these “I have the keys, steps, 10 ten things, proven strategies, blah blah blah to happiness in your life” books coming from them.
I noticed this trend before reading this article actually and it’s nice to see it fleshed out here. I’m just not sure we should get all our info from the same source (even if it has different names).
But, then again, one might say “no, these people have the experience, so of course they’re the experts” and to that I say, just go out and get your own experience, then you can write a book about not buying books from people.
Whoa my head hurts.