Preface: One of my very closest friends and mentors is Lahat Tzvi. He’s one of the most thoughtful consultant I’ve met. One of my most important meetings is our monthly conversation, “Trying To Solve The Selling Problems Of The World.” What I value most is Lahat’s way of asking questions and getting me to think differently. What I value second is his patience with my terrible puns and jokes. This is a stunning article! It was originally published in his newsletter, I hope I translated it (or Google did) accurately from Hebrew.

Why am I obsessed with sales?

Wrote:  Haat Zvi

category:  General sales , March, 2024

Spoiler: This is not an article about advanced sales strategies or tactics, nor about recommended management practices or about advance planning and mapping of the decision makers. This is a personal essay and it was written as a follow-up to a challenge that my close friend Dave Brock posed to me in our monthly conversation.

Christian Mauer (Dave’s friend) asked him why he is so obsessed with sales? Dave wrote an article stating his reasons,

He asked me the same question and this is my answer.

For me, sales meet all the passions, ambitions, loves, dreams, values, fears, hopes…

This is a profession that motivates me and allows me to grow, sales are my great love.

Look around you for a moment. Do you have a phone in your hand? computer? Are you sitting on a chair? an armchair? is there a table Do you maybe drink coffee? eat something

All the things around you are there because one simple action took place: sale! 

Sales moves the world, it is the oldest profession in the world (contrary to what others think) and without the ability of people and companies to make sales –

Nothing could exist in the ecosystem around us.  Sales have fascinated me for three decades.

I am obsessed with everything related to the field and as time goes by, I fall in love with this profession more and more, it has everything: challenge, problem solving, helping others, leadership, management, curiosity, creativity, surprises. Everything you want and can think of is found in a distilled form in one profession.

I was lucky and I work in a profession that I love, rewarded for solving problems, achievements and successes.
The feedback I receive over the years from people who tell me that our joint meetings changed their lives proves to me every time that I chose the right profession (or maybe he chose me?).  My name is Lahat and I am obsessed with sales.

I am driven by problem solving, achievements, victories and closing deals. 
 

I am proud of the profession and everyone who chose and chooses to work in it. I like to learn (this is a field that never stops changing, the level of complexity increases year by year and with it the expectations of the customers), and I have a great interest in helping customers.

History repeats itself
if you ask historians or psychologists they will tell you that our past significantly affects our present, and also the future.

I want to take you on a short trip in time and tell you about my childhood and past and the lessons I learned. 
 

I believe that the roots and foundations of the profession were planted at a young age.

Like many children I loved sports, I loved running, long distance running to be more precise.
I remember how I would wait for my father to come home from work so we could go running together, each time he would set me new challenges,

A timer and would always compete with me (and would never let me win). 

When I reached the age where I could start competing, he would take me to the running track the day before (then the competitions within the school were held on the street or in the small forest), and he would plan the run with me; He would explain to me how to distribute the power, where to increase the pace and before every competition he would say: “Listen carefully, 100 meters from the finish line you sprint, no matter what, even if you feel you can’t.”

As they say: easy to say, hard to do (by the way, if you’re curious, I’d win most competitions).

When I got older and continued to compete, I would do the planning of the course myself, I would choose the points that I thought were the “breaking points” (usually I would choose a steep hill), my strategy would be to jump in a good place in the middle and then when you reach the hill, run and climb it in a sprint.

I admit, I enjoyed watching the competitors break down mentally. I knew if I kept the pace right, I was winning. 
My first sales lesson was advance planning, intensive training and strategy.

Let’s jump years ahead, in the army, at the age of 18, I received my second lesson in sales: to face challenges and develop self-discipline. 
Adherence to the task, striving for excellence, “soldiering”, continuing even when it’s difficult, creativity – these are some of the tools I acquired as part of my military services.

Immediately after the military service, I worked for a year in the defense sector, where I received the third lesson: dealing with pressure situations and changing situations, making decisions under conditions of uncertainty (this has a huge value in sales).

Then real life began, I finished my commitment and went for citizenship.
If you think someone or something was waiting for me, you are wrong – I was unemployed for eight months.
When they asked me what I knew how to do, I said that I knew how to shoot (what a pity that at that time there were not even guards in malls).

At one point someone offered me a job in sales. Sales? I am? What is the connection?

He told me how much good salespeople earn and my next question was: where and when do you start? 
 

He advised me to contact the “S.H.L” company, he said: “They accept everyone”. 
I called, they invited me to the assessment center, there were about 30 applicants. He was almost right: they accepted everyone, except me.

They told me: “We are really debating about you.”  I said: “Let me try, you have nothing to lose, at most tell me to see you in a week.”

They liked the idea and gave me the first try. 
 

I went through a three-week sales course and was included in the business pilot – door-to-door sales (the old agents didn’t agree, so they included all the young ones). I was doing really well, a guy named Moti and I were competing against each other. I don’t know what Moti’s motivation was, mine was that I had no choice there but success. I had no money, I didn’t work for a while and I owed a lifeline.

My fourth lesson: when you’re down, you have no other option but to succeed. Mindset and attitude determine everything.

At some point they decided to promote me and offered me to meet with private clients, unfortunately this was a recipe for failure, I did not succeed in the sales meetings.

It frustrated me, even though I did my best – I failed. And at the same time, I wasn’t ready to give up, I saw it as a challenge that I had to face. 

I asked a guy named Alon (who was the outstanding seller to the private audience) to join him in the meetings. I remember being fascinated by the way he talked to the customers, I asked him to teach me, he said: come to the meeting, bring a notebook, write everything down and at the end ask me questions. 

This notebook accompanied me for years, in almost every workplace. 
When I didn’t close deals, I would call the clients the next day and ask to know what I missed, what I did wrong that caused them to gently reject me.

Some were honest and revealed the answers to me. The fifth lesson: the fact that you are successful in a certain field, does not mean that you will be successful in another field.

Failure is part of the growth process – as long as you learn from it.

I admit, it didn’t take long for the field of sales to attract me to it with all its might.

I fell in love with the profession, solving problems, helping clients make decisions and helping them achieve results.

I did my following positions in the field of sales and management in international companies.

There the standards were different, the complexity of the sale was unlike what I was familiar with. I had to learn and teach myself almost everything from the beginning. I read a lot, I met excellent salespeople from whom I learned a lot, there was a lot of trial and error and especially managers who gave me room for action.

My sixth lesson from the period: learn to ask for help, learn, be focused, strive for a goal.
 
I entered the world of consulting in the third decade of my life, I worked for a company that had just developed a consulting channel for sales teams. It was a big challenge for me.

Very quickly I realized that I was attracted to businesses that face complex challenges and not companies that collect orders. 

The seventh lesson: focus on the things you do well. Companies will value you based on your ability to create value for them and deliver results. Beautiful words are not enough.

When I opened my consulting company two decades ago, I had a clear strategy, to focus on B2B companies only,

I chose to work with large companies, to solve complex problems, that was my drive. 
 

Every time I came to a diagnostic process, I would ask to see the reports and the numbers, I would hang them on the wall and look at them,

At first I wouldn’t ask for explanations. I’m not sure I know how and why, but it all came together in a minute.
 

I like to examine the problems from different angles, analyze options, ask questions.

The eighth lesson: it’s okay to “slaughter sacred cows”, to test basic assumptions or claims that “this is how we’re used to doing it”.

Happily, over two decades, I had the opportunity to work with a wide variety of companies, I met thousands of people and sales managers, I was privileged to be exposed to a wide variety of strategies and methods, I learned how to blend things, experiment with new things, replicate and make adjustments (models that work in traditional/high-tech industries) .

My experience has taught me that the answers are right under your nose, you just have to learn how to connect the dots, look for action patterns and think outside the box. The ninth lesson: focus on people, they are the most important factor in any sale and problem solving.

Over the years I have seen how the world of sales changes, how it takes a new shape.
Every year the challenges change, the level of difficulty increases. It is not easy today to succeed in the field of sales.

I look back and at the present, I have had many successes along with failures (also as a salesperson), I have experienced frustrations along with many cases of elation (when the clients and I won deals), to me the future looks promising and I know that anyone who wants to learn and succeed can achieve it. 

These days, together with friends, colleagues and professionals that I appreciate, we are developing the code for the profession and I hope that as many people as possible will join us and act according to the values ​​we believe in (putting the customer at the center, selling with integrity are some of the leading values).

On a personal level, I have a “hive” of people I value and cherish, I learn a lot from them and consult with them on complex issues (our industry is full of talented people who share their perspective with others. Consultants who develop approaches, tools and strategies that enable others to succeed). The tenth and final lesson of this article: learning is an action that never ends. As I deepen and learn, I realize that I don’t know enough, that I still have a lot to learn and how lucky I am to have the people around me who are willing to help me grow. 

And a last word to end: if I have to summarize everything in one sentence, I choose to quote the Chinese philosopher Confucius: “Choose a job you love and you won’t have to work a single day in your life.” (The truth is that this is not really true, I work hard and a lot).

Dave, thanks for sharing the challenge with me.

Above all, you are a true friend, you are a mentor and the smartest person I know in the field. With great love and appreciation