Communication = Trust; Trust = Efficiencies

At some event, eating nondescript hotel-chef prepared Hors d'œuvres, wearing a paper name tag on my right lapel I was entertained by a friendly and very serious gentleman who with a perfectly straight face intoned, "Our company does not really have salespeople." Both because I found this idea striking in its extreme unlikeliness and because my mother didn't raise any fools, I feigned only mild surprise murmuring, "How so?" He explained that each partner was expected to do a little marketing only, that actual selling was not required and would, indeed, be inappropriate for people in his profession. I suspect that many share his view. I don't.

Call it what you will but, in my view, every company employs at least one person in the sales capacity. One needn't take my word for it either. It's easy to prove. Simply examine the very first line of the company's income statement. If that line lists an item called "sales" voila! Somebody is a salesperson. Just to the make sure that the point hits home the second line is an item labeled "cost of goods sold". Once again our friends, the accountants, lead the way, speaking truth to power.

Of course, by this measure (and what other could there be?) every company has salespeople. For without a top line all the other lines become decidedly no fun. So why the dissembling, obfuscation, disavowal, pretended high-minded twaddle and other verbal sleight of hand that seeks to misdirect us by referencing "business development", "client acquisition" and "marketing" when what one is really referring to is "sales"? Who is the salesperson here and why aren't they darn proud of it? Let the others lay claim to the expenses. Make my number positive!

And why, in particular, do salespeople so often claim to be engaged in marketing. Marketing is, goodness knows, totally cool. But what discipline could be farther removed from sales? After all, marketing is an expense and sales is revenue. Negative and positive. Antimatter and matter. Yin and Yang. Rocky and Bullwinkle. Both are important but, nonetheless, polar opposites.

You can hear the difference in their respective cries. The marketer says, "Let's identify our prospects, craft an enticing message and deliver it in the most seductive of packages frequently so that in the fullness of time they will notice us, grow to want us, begin to yearn for us and then they will be ours!" The salesperson says "The heck with that. Let's call them now!"

Somewhere along the line a lot of us clearly got the message that "sales" is a dirty word. Today's economy will be a little bit unkind to those who insist on cherishing that conceit. In 2009 denial will not just be costly. For many it will be fatal.

Sometimes the best learning is unlearning.

Mark Fitzgerald, Sales Training Institute, Inc., Tampa, Florida provides this column weekly. Mr. Fitzgerald provides both group and customized sales training for professionals and companies. For more information, please contact him by telephone at 813-831-5555 via email at mark@saleskills.com or visit www.saleskills.com.