It’s high time we addressed some issues that have been facing the sales community for quite a while now. The public thinks we’re a bunch of Lambo driving, coke snorting, hooker renting savages. It’s time we came clean on some issues that have been facing those of us in the sales industry since day one. 

Allow me to clear up some confusion. Lemme share some information the public needs to know about people who work in sales. We’re not a bunch of money starved, drug addicted savages. We’re every day parents, employees and humanitarians. Before you try to “beat up” the next salesman over his prices consider the fact that he/she’s working for a living, just like you.

Let’s get clear on some misconceptions about folks who work in sales for a living

We Only Get Paid When The Customer Buys Most people don’t understand what working in “commission only” really means. It means we don’t get paid unless the customer buys something. We are not paid to show you around, take you for test drives or any that stuff. Matter of fact, those are things we do as a courtesy to earn your business. We earn our income when the client is 100% satisfied and has paid for our product. We do not get paid for the time we are not closing sales. 

We Believe In Our Products Salespeople sell what they love. From smartphones to houses, people sell what they love. I’ve never met a guy selling cars who hates cars. Same goes for realtors, they love real estate. Only a sociopath can sell something they don’t believe in and still sleep at night. Those guys only exist in the media and movies. 

We Work For Referrals When you’re happy we get paid. It’s in our best interests to give you A level service. Knowing this, you should have no problem sending us your friends and family. We will treat them the same way. Think of us as “your guy/gal in the XYZ business” We’re your hook up. Use us! 

We Exist To Solve Problems Sales is about solving problems. It’s not about fancy talking, jive turkey salespeople who won’t shut up. The best salespeople look for the prospect’s problem and see how their product/service can solve it. Most of us don’t talk much. A master salesperson listens more he speaks.  

We Aren’t In Control Of The Cost Despite what you think, the salesperson does not dictate price. Sure, we might have some sort of margin we work with, but the price is set. Most of us don’t own the business, therefore we have no clue what the true cost of our products are. Most of us are given a price and told to sell it at X price and we earn Y commission. End of story. 

We Are Married To Our Jobs Part of believing in what you sell, is being willing to sacrifice for it. We work more than a 9-5. We work weekends, holidays and after traditional work hours. We make ourselves available to our prospects and clients damn near 24/7.  When you go home, your work is over, our job never ends. 

We Care About Our Clients You can’t last in sales and not care about people. Salespeople are the most empathetic humans on the planet. They care about their clients, causes and commissions. If you’re not happy we don’t get paid. Our job is to make you 100% happy and the only people who can do that job and last are empathetic humans aka salespeople. 

We Pay Back Our Income For Refunds When you ask for a refund instead of hitting us up first, it comes out of our checks. Corporations take our money back all the time. Next time you’re thinking about a refund, contact your sales rep and see if they can help solve your problem first, before you rush to get your money back. We want you to be happy. Give us a chance to make it so. 

We Are Not Paid As Much As You Think The day of the overpaid salesperson are long gone. Most of us operate on a 1-7% commission margin. Many of us paid on volume instead of individual sales. You think we all make money like Wolf of Wall Street but the truth is the average salesperson earns less than 6 figures annually. 

Nest time you have a run in with a salesperson, remember this article. Remember that he/she most likely wants to help you and solve your problem rather than rip you off and earn some outrageous commission. That’s just not how it works. There’s too much technology and information floating around for all that. 

If you’re in sales, share this article on social media and help bring awareness about our industry. I’m in sales too, I solve problems for salespeople, you can see a live demonstration on Thursday at www.hcwebinar.com