We’re nearing the time of year when many of us in the United States will be gathering to share Thanksgiving Day together with family and friends. You may or may not celebrate this, but as you approach this next week, may I propose 5 things about your Sales career to be thankful for, to add to your list? Consider, if you will, Independence, Limitlessness, Friends & Network, Universality, and Family.
Independence
A sales career means you are, essentially, running your own business. You may be paid with straight salary, have a base salary plus commission, or maybe you’re all commission. No matter. You are your own money making machine and, to the extent that you can demonstrate that you can deliver consistent sales, you can be confident that you’ll be able to keep going.
When you start having a bit of success in sales, you get to be even more independent. People leave you alone to go do more of what they’ve seen you’re good at. (Of course, when you’re not having as much success, you may get a lot more attention.) After a while of achieving success, you can be confident enough to set your own goals, work the way you want to work, be where you want to be, and live the way you want to live. This is so different than many other careers that it is worth appreciating.
You’ll also get to decide how you’ll differentiate yourself — how you’ll sell. The older you get, the more important this becomes. Early in our careers, when we’re young, companies hire us for our brute force raw energy. These kinds of sales roles are pretty undifferentiated. As you age, you develop and get to bring more of yourself. And you should use all you bring to differentiate, unless you want to spend your entire career in brute force high energy sales roles. Being Independent here means you might choose to differentiate based upon industry, type of sale or territory, business problem solved, or even, stage of company. This lets you bring all your proven skill or experience to prospective employers in a highly differentiated package.
In my case, I differentiated based on industry, company stage, and customer. I’d tell prospective employers that if they were a smaller software company with new products in new markets and needed someone with skill at developing new sales at the lowest risk, that we should talk. That I might be a good fit.
Of course, you have to be able to back up your differentiation with facts. But the first step here is to realize you have the independence to set your own course. Sales provides you with an incomparable ability to do so.
Limitlessness
When you chose Sales as a career, you picked a profession that has very few limits. How much will you earn? Where will you work? How quickly will you advance? Unlike many other careers, in sales none of those are tightly prescribed. I’ve seen people move into sales, work quite hard, figure things out and do incredibly well.
Make no mistake, you and only you are responsible for how high you can go. But how high you go is not going to be limited by the profession.
In Sales, people often ask “What is your ‘why’?” Namely, your reason to endure the ceaseless grind and rejection built into the profession. I’d like to suggest that right now would be a good time to ask yourself if your “Why” is big enough. You are in a career that has no limits.
Repeat that softly to yourself: “My profession has no limits.”
Knowing that, what would you really like to accomplish? Make a list. If you’re like me, you’ll be surprised how your career will help you to check each item off your list.
Your Friends & Network
Something I am most thankful for are the people I have met along the way. Customers, former employers, and other people you work with and network with constitute something wonderful in your life.
Have you considered how lucky you are to be in a profession where every time you do your job you have the opportunity to profoundly help someone else? I don’t even remember how much I earned in commissions from most of my customers, but I absolutely treasure my memories of what working together to serve people meant in helping them with their own companies, careers, and families.
And the companies you work for become like your extended little families. When you change companies, having left them you end up carrying some family members with you. Maybe as friends, maybe part of your network, or people you bring with you to your next job. This web of connections is so wonderful that you should spend a little time thinking about it, and being thankful for it.
Of those, there are people you carry with you for decades. The special friends, colleagues, your advisors and mentors. Reach out to them and thank them for being there for you.
And try to be one, too. The world needs more people like that and you can make a difference, be it as a friend, colleague, or network member.
May I suggest that this week you contact a few of them to tell them how much they mean to you?
Universality
I started my career as a software programmer, not a salesperson. Computers were just beginning to proliferate and there was quite a bit of opportunity. Every company needed programmers! Because I was good at working with people, I quickly transitioned from programming to customer-facing roles with sales responsibilities. However, after a while I noticed something happening to my old programming colleagues: many were being replaced. Their work was being shipped off to parts of the world where labor was cheaper. Or maybe they were replaced by new grads who had the latest technical knowledge or skill. Or they were replaced with people coming to the US on visas who were willing to work for less.
Yet, in sales, that didn’t happen - my career flourished. Because every company always needs sales and sales is local. This is not to say that sales and selling hasn’t changed. Much of selling is now automated and self service. You buy shoes from Zappos online and go to Amazon for everything instead of dealing with a real world store, as was the norm a generation ago. In fact, people will even buy houses online without talking with a human. Nonetheless, if you do a quick scan of job openings - even during the deepest recession - you’ll find that companies need sales people. And that is fantastic for you.
I dare say that generating sales will continue to be a great, universal need of companies and that people who can demonstrate they can sell will be valuable. And because selling is tied closely to language and culture, it is pretty difficult to offshore or otherwise outsource high value selling.
So be thankful that you’ve picked a career that is universal and has a future that is not tied to the current fads of the moment.
Family
Last, I’d like you to think about the people you consider family. Those around you who have learned, despite all odds, to put up with you. Your sales career doesn’t just take a toll on you — your family is affected too — in ways you would do well to consider. This is in large part because in sales, we are independent, we are responsible - and that means to a certain extent that we are never truly “off work.”
I’m grateful to my wife, children, and extended family who tolerated the unceasing drone of endless sales activities interrupting virtually every off-hour, weekend, vacation and holiday. I’m sure my kids can recount many stories of being at the beach or some hotel room while Dad was on a sales call or attending meetings all afternoon and having to keep it down because I was on a call.
My daughter’s bedroom was right next to my home office. One day, someone asked her if she ever overheard any of my calls. Her way of answering: she completely and accurately delivered my normal beginning of call introduction and a series of discovery questions that I used. (Also accurately mimicking my tone of voice, for added effect!)
I also reflect on the many trips my family took without me, because I had to stay home or travel somewhere else to work to hit my number. We inflict our careers on our loved ones.
For me, providing for my family was always among my biggest “whys” and I’m so thankful they put up with all I had to do as part of my sales career.
I’d like to invite you to consider all you have to be thankful for in your sales career, too. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!