“Why I’m So Interested In Selling,” Tobia La Marca

Preface: I’ve actually never met Tobia La Marca, but we “talk” and exchange notes/ideas quite frequently. Our relationship started as one of those very “tentative” LinkedIn relationships. Tobia engaged me, complementing my book, I accepted his invitation. Then he started sending me questions and views on some of my posts. They were really good questions, I enjoyed our correspondence. Then, he wrote, I have the Sales Strategist Podcast, would you be a guest? I remember being a little skeptical, but agreed to participate. And that’s when he blew me away. Some of the questions he asked were questions I’d never been asked, he challenged my thinking and presented interesting points of view. Since then, I pay attention to everything he does, he’s a great thinker/practiioner in selling. I love his passion/obsession with selling.

Why Am I Obsessed With Selling?

The question is correct: “ Why am I obsessed with selling?” – because the love for my job looks like an obsession from the outside.

I wake up every morning and spend 1 hour reading a sales book, at least 25/30 pages, to get fresh ideas and strategies to apply in my everyday conversations.

I take care of my own development as a seller, because every 6-8 months I start a new certification path to enrich my skills.

I have a podcast which I leverage to interview all the sales thinkers, sales trainers and sales coaches who changed my approach with their books: during these podcasts I’m in the ‘learning mode’ and I try to get everything I can.

I connect with more experienced peers, to receive their advice.

I coach less experienced peers, because as you know, if you teach what you know you get better at it… so yes, I’m obsessed with selling.

But… how did this obsession start?

At 25 I was unsatisfied about my job – I just earned a degree in Psychology but I didn’t want to be a clinician, so I ended up working in Retail Stores management: at that time, I was managing 5 stores all over Italy for a famous fashion company.

But I knew it was not enough… I wanted more.

I wanted to study a subject I could be interested in for my whole life, as I did with Psychology.
I needed a job which gave me the freedom to organize my day, to work longer hours if needed and to be entrepreneurial – I also needed a job with more earning potential.

So, I started working as an independent sales agent for a cosmetic company, all this in my free days (I still had my full-time job by that time) – the idea was to make the right amount of money to pay for my University course abroad.

I invested all my savings in the products… and I was not able to sell them: it was not that easy as I thought from the outside.

So, I started reading Sales Books and I understood that I could get better at it if I kept studying.
I learned that it was like applied sciences, like the experiments we ran at university – selling meant testing variables, what worked and what didn’t, and the variables were the human being behaviors.

As a Psychologist whose favorite subject was (and is) Decision-Making, you can understand how I felt.

With selling, I could look close at Decision-Making processes: I could understand why people choose something, what factors influence their decision and how I could help that decision.

I could understand their emotions, emphasize with them and establish a connection, a relationship with someone else.

It was and it is more than money… it is and it was all about people.

So, I decided to fly to Edinburgh (Scotland) and earn a M.Sc. in Marketing with Sales Management – one of the best decisions of my life.

I think this is why I’m obsessed with selling: because I’m obsessed with people.

I’m obsessed with our ability to think, to act, to talk and to decide – I’m curious about our species and I truly believe that this curiosity will never be fully satisfied.

Because we evolve constantly: we change the way we think, we change the way we act, we change the way we talk, and we change the way we decide… so my learning opportunities are infinite.

And selling is one of the few jobs in the world who allows me to stay close, observe, study, connect and establish relationships with one of my favorite species: the human beings.

I have never believed into the sentence “Nothing personal, just business”.

I’d rather say, “Everything personal, just sales”.