Selling Is About Helping People

What did you want to be when you grew up?

When you were a young child do you remember people asking you what you wanted to be when you grew up? Do you remember what you said? If you have your own children and ask them this same question, what will they say? The typical answer from an average kid is something like doctor, lawyer, teacher, policeman, fireman, and the like. What do these professions have in common? They all help people. A child might even say an athlete, who helps people by entertaining them. Or even an astronaut, who helps people by furthering the progress of mankind as a whole. Although in the latest news, I’m not sure that animal-abusing athletes and drunken astronauts are good role models these days, but I digress.

I don’t know if children mention these professions because they are conditioned by their parents and TV, or if deep down inside they are predisposed to helping people and know that these jobs will allow them to do that. Funny how life changes people as they grow older. Ask any teenager what they want to be and I’ll bet you the list is totally different than their pre-pubescent one. Ask any adult if what they are doing now is what they said they wanted to be when they grew up and most will say no. I know this is a fact for many sales people because I ask my students this question when I do sales training. In fact, very few sales people say they actually planned to be in sales. Sales people frequently got into sales by accident or through some unplanned event, as opposed to a designed career move or through a university degree on the subject (which rarely exist). But now that they are in sales, here comes the hard part – Do they STILL want to help people? If you are in sales, do YOU want to help your customers?... Read More