Sales roles prepare you for leadership, and life!
In the early days of my career as a young area sales manager for Indomie, I was tasked up to increase the width and depth of distribution and drive business growth for the brand. While I was enjoying my role, I never envisaged that the sales skills I am acquiring would shape my leadership style and ultimately help me become a better CEO, and most importantly, a better person.
Sharing 5 key takeaways from my sales assignments that helped me unfathomable skills in life!!
● Importance of purpose in motivation
Sales targets and incentives are not enough to motivate people and bring their best at work every day. Create a purpose that makes people feel like a part of something bigger than just the item at hand. The purpose you create is always focused on a shared outcome that is bigger than any product or market.
● ‘I will come again tomorrow’
Resilience and patience win. In life, there are new obstacles every day, but the best salespeople develop resilience and patience to deal with challenges and setbacks that are often beyond everyone's control. Selling teaches you the art of responding well in the face of adversity. The best sales folks I know have a much higher threshold of suffering and surviving crisis situations..
● Humble yourself or life will
“If you are humble, nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are.” ― Mother Teresa
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Always take praise and disgrace at face value and try analyzing everything objectively, without any biases. As a salesperson, you will win and achieve targets on some days, but you will learn every day, period. It is imperative to introspect on days you fall short of the desired results and keep your head grounded on the days you achieve or overachieve your targets. Neither success nor failure stays forever and defines who you are.
● Negotiation is a way of life
In my opinion, Negotiation is one of the most important soft-skills. You are negotiating everyday during sales and on most days during life. Sales stint was like a net practice to groom this skill. You meet different people, different mindsets leading to diverse set of ideas and rationales. The way your brain processes that information and subconsciously gets you loaded with the right tactics at the right situations, is commendable.
● One carton increment a day
Learning and growth only by an inch a day is so micro for that day but makes a huge difference over a period of time. The power of compounding was best realized when I saw what adding a carton additional sales each day did over 365 days. I make sure to do that 'One carton increment' in anything that I am trying to grow in my life.
I always recommend young professionals pick up challenging sales assignments in the early part of their careers. The skill of selling lays the foundation stone to acquire traits that will help you excel at the workplace and life!
Look of success and visibility. Great customer!
Regional sales manager
2yThis is great experience, thank you for sharing
Regional Sales & Marketing Manager
2yThis is very educative in up-skilling
Learning & Development Manager
2y"Selling teaches you the art of responding well in the face of adversity." "The skill of selling lays the foundation stone to acquire traits that will help you excel at the workplace and in life!" These are profound statements for me. Thank you.
Read Once. It talks about Sales. Read Twice. It talks about Life. Read Thrice. It is an Inspiration. This one is too good piece of story you shared. With every every read it brings amazing lights. I believe Sales is just an art. More than learning the techniques, the passion drives you to do more, more of some thing, may not be numbers everyday, but the efforts everyday. That's where the compounding works the magic. The humbleness keeps us grounded, while the resilience keeps us moving. It's Never easy to forget the failures. But we can use the failure to motivate for the next day. Thanks for motivating. Keep sharing.