Preface: Sheevaun Thatcher is a well known leader in the Rev Ops community. We were talking about this series, I said, “I’d really love your views on this, but you aren’t a ‘seller.'” Sheevaun quickly corrected me, “Dave everyone sells, every day!” This is such an important concept for everyone, yet too often we forget it. We think the sellers are those that carry quota. But everyone in the organization carries goals and to achieve those goals they need to engage others and get their support in moving forward.
None of us can achieve our goals/quotas alone, we achieve them by gaining support from those we work with, partners, and our customers. To gain that support, we must serve them, so in turn they serve us.
Before I turn you over to Sheevaun for her story, I would be remiss by not congratulating her for being named one of the Top Women Leaders of San Francisco of 2024.
Why Do I love Selling?
I don’t live to sell. I live to serve. While some people wake up in the morning and think “who am I going to sell to today?”, I wake up in the morning and say “Who am I going to help today?”
Now, I’m not totally altruistic. When I first started selling, back when the earth was cooling, it was definitely about who I was going to sell to, how I was going to get them to buy, and how I was going to get them to buy a LOT so that I could go buy stuff for me!
I still want to buy stuff for me.
Over the years I have discovered that selling can be full of risk and anxiety and nerves and stress and pain and rejection and fear. I felt all those emotions many many times over. When you approach every selling opportunity as what’s in it for me, then you are bound to feel all those emotions. Because your needs are not always going to be met. Likely they will seldom be met. There will be lots of failure. That’s one of the reasons I got out of direct selling. The risk did not offset the reward for me.
I moved into a presales solution engineering role instead. I could still participate in the selling opportunity however my job wasn’t at risk each quarter. I used to tell people I would hold the bucket for the blood and then pour it back into the sellers at the beginning of the next quarter.
I got to watch sellers turn to dust and be blown away by the wind. I got to watch sellers crush their quotas and set themselves up financially for life. You know what the fundamental difference was? The dustbowl was filled with sellers who put themselves first, and the
mansions were filled with sellers who put their customers first.
For the last decade and a half I have been fully engaged in sales and revenue enablement strategy execution. Am I out of selling. Oh hell no. I sell every single day; programs, ideas, hiring needs, accountability…
I sell people on how to help others. I sell them how to be curious. I sell them how to listen. For those in the back, I said LISTEN. I sell them how to put their customer first. I sell them how to be present. I sell them how to keep promises, and also when not to make promises. I sell them that failure doesn’t really exist; you’re simply in a place you hadn’t counted on. And I sell them how to celebrate the Win/Win. Each sale has a resulting benefit.
And that is why I love selling.
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