This document discusses the importance and challenges of selling. It states that selling is essential for acquiring new customers and clients, and that everyone is involved in selling to some degree, whether externally to customers or internally to colleagues. It also outlines many of the skills and qualities needed to be a successful salesperson, such as endurance, persuasiveness, and the ability to adapt to different situations. The document emphasizes that selling is a key profession that plays a vital role in keeping businesses running successfully.

1. S elling I s . . . .

2. Selling is the one game in town that pays the bills, that keeps the doors open, that nobody wants to admit they do. "I'm not in sales, I'm a supervisor, doctor, lawyer, banker, administrator, accountant." "Don't look at me, I'm just the secretary, nurse, receptionist, shipping clerk." Funny - if nobody sells . . . how do you get new students, new patients, new clients, new customers?

3. Selling is everyone's business and when it's not, you're in trouble... Think about it... Remember the time you decided not to go back to a company, because the shipping clerk sent you the wrong item, the receptionist was cold & surly, the manager didn't have time to talk to a mere customer, the doctor had you wait two hours. That's selling . . . negative selling.

4. Remember - everyone sells, and not just externally, but internally as well.

5. When you want a raise, you sell your boss on your skills & value. When you set new policies and procedures you sell these to your staff in a way they can accept, or you'll soon find they'll ignore them . . . When you expect more of your staff than you're willing to properly train and supervise them for, you're whistling up a hollow tree, because they're only as good as the training you give them.

6. But there's more to selling than that.

7. Selling is knowing . . . Who's your competition? Who's your customer, client, patient or public? And what's important -- you or them? Selling is knowing . . . What your service, idea, or product is - and isn't; what your public's needs are; and what services or products you offer to fit those needs Selling is knowing . . . When to market and where; Where your competition isn't and then being there; Why some things are accepted and others not.

8. Selling is knowing... How to treat your public as you would like to be treated; How to market and merchandise better than your competition; How to listen and learn from your staff as well as your public; How to assess your own knowledge, or lack of it about your services, ideas, goods or products; and how to make it easier for your public to accept what you are offering.

9. And finally, SELLING IS knowing that this business is after all, a profession . . . THE PROFESSION of selling. Let us not pretend it's someone else's problem

10. W hat I s S alesman ?

11. A salesman is a pin on map to the sales manager a quota to the factory an overloaded expense account to the auditor a bookkeeping item called “Cost of Selling” to the treasurer a smile and a wise crack to the receptionist and a purveyor flattery to the buyer

12. A salesman needs the endurance of Hercules the brass of Barnum the craft of Machiavelli the tact of a Diplomat the tongue of an Orator the charm of a Playboy and the brain of Computer

13. He must, be impervious to insult, indifference, anger, scorn, complaint and be razor-sharp, even after entertaining until dawn with a customer He must have the stamina to sell all day, entertain all evening, drive all night to the next town and be on the job fresh at 9 am He must be good at story telling and willing to lose at golf and cards

14. He wishes his merchandise was better, his prices lower, his commissions higher, his territory smaller, his competitor more ethical, his goods more promptly delivered, his boss more sympathetic, his advertising more effective and his customers more human But he is realist to excepts the fact that none of this will ever be But he is optimist, so he makes the sales anyway

15. He lives or dies by the daily report he rolls his days away in a tedium of plain, trains and cars he sleeps his nights away in cheerless hotel rooms each morning he hoists on to his back the dead weight of last years sales records and this years quota and goes forth to do it all over again Yet, for all that, he is absolutely certain that tomorrow will be better and there is nothing he would rather do, any body he would rather be – than a salesman

16. Thank You