Sales is a tough industry to sell, despite the fact that I get a lot of free stuff from selling on Craigslist. It is not easy to get work, and there are plenty of bad apples.
I don’t get work often, I’ve been rejected from around a thousand jobs, and I’ve tried many different places. It all came down to the same thing: I didn’t have a good reason for buying what was offered to me. It could have been so much more, it was just a job.
To get the job you have to be able to sell it and make it look good. A lot of times you will end up with a bad sales rep and a bad boss. Ive seen lots of sales reps lose their jobs, but you have to be the one to get fired.
While a lot of sales reps lose their jobs, you can’t blame sales reps for the company they work for. If a company is a bad place to work for, then you’ll end up with bad sales reps and bad bosses.
You are the one who keeps your job. The sales rep is the one who takes you off your feet and puts you on your feet. The sales rep you work with is the one who keeps you from falling down and making a mess.
And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that many sales reps have a hard time letting go of the people who’ve hired them. They often work for people who they feel don’t know how to delegate well enough. The problem isn’t just that they forget to say thank you to certain people, but that they get too busy doing all the things that make their lives difficult.
To give you an idea of how sales reps are treated, I recently worked with two major retailers. The first one (a national chain) refused to let me leave my desk until I had purchased everything in stock. My job was to do the whole thing myself. The second was a local chain which put me in charge of a department where we didn’t have any stock. I had to remind everyone I was there and make sure everything was in stock.
Here I was talking to a guy who said that he was a “manager” at a national retailer, and that he was in charge of all of their sales. He was also the person who told me how it was treated at the local retailer. The guy said that the sales rep was the most important person in the department and that he had to “make the sale.” The problem? He said that he didnt have to do anything.
We hear this from time to time in the industry, but it’s not always true. When someone in the business asks you to do something, you’re expected to do it. Sales reps are hired to sell products and services, whether you’re aware of it or not. You don’t get fired for not knowing the difference between a sales rep and a sales manager. The sales rep is the person who makes the sale, and that’s it.
The truth is that your job in sales is to make the sale. The fact is that youre not the one selling, youre selling. The sales rep also needs to know that. If youre aware of this, then you should be the one making the sale. If youre not, then you shouldnt be the sales rep. But most importantly, you have to know when youre the sales rep and when youre part of the sales team.
