Preface: George Bronten and I have been friends for years. I first met him because I was intrigued by the capabilities of Membrain. It’s one of the most interesting technologies, I’ve seen. I think George and I recognized similar passions with technology, business and selling. Since that introductory meeting, we continue to have conversations about the state of our profession and its future.
Two separate sentences lept out in George’s story: “There aren’t a lot of careers where you can do everything you can in sales.” This, I think is so powerful, when you look at the breadth of things sellers do as part of their jobs, it’s fascinating.
And, “And there’s always something new to learn.”
Why Selling
As a kid, my dream was to become a loudspeaker engineer. Building speakers was my passion – small speakers, large subwoofers, and car sound systems. Because of this, my first job was at a DIY loudspeaker store.
One of the most exciting parts of the job was to see new drivers and tweeters show up from vendors who innovated with new technology and materials. I loved learning about the new tech and understanding how to compose the perfect speaker combination, crossover, and casing, for the “product” to sound as good as possible.
When customers came to the store, it was fun to showcase our speakers and to get them as hooked on the passion as I was. I think this was my first realization that sales is all about helping people find what they need and provide a solution.
Today, these are still some of the things I love about selling: Learning about new technology, becoming the expert on it, understanding customers and how to compose the perfect combination of solutions to meet their needs, and helping customers make decisions about what to buy and why and how.
There aren’t a lot of careers where you can do everything you can in sales. If you get good at it, you can pretty much write your own ticket into any industry you’re interested in. You get to become the expert, learn from experts, and teach others. You get to help people by applying your expertise to help them understand what’s possible, define their own needs and priorities, and design a solution that works best for them.
And there’s always something new to learn. If you’re an expert on your own technology, you can always become an expert on how it compares to your competitors. And when you’re an expert on that, you need to deep-dive into the business of your customers and that of their customers. And when you’re really good at all that, you need to improve your business acumen, human psychology, and many other things that impact sales. And you’re always learning about your customers and yourself. And, in the best of all worlds, what you learn in the field from customers can become an innovation in its own right and feed back into product design.
I made a lot of mistakes in my early sales career, but these are the reasons that keep me coming back and why I’m proud to work in the sales industry and to help other sellers sell better.
Leave a Reply