Education Sales

Having close family members and friends all be teachers of some sorts, the last thing I would have expected was to hear that all of them are sales people in one way or another. Teachers are the furthest thing from sales people. They don’t talk the same, look the same, act the same, but somehow they are.

After talking to a few of them though I think I finally figured our how it makes sense. Salespeople don’t have to be trying to sell you a product. They have to sell you an idea. The people I talked to told me how even though “sales” isn’t something they’d describe their job as, selling kids on the idea that education is important and the subject they teach, is important to them. Similarly, after Coach D talked about how in every transaction, the focus isn’t the product you’re selling, but the person you’re selling it to.

The thing I took away from this, is sales isn’t about selling a product to someone. The product is more or less irrelevant. its about selling an idea or thought to someone. You can’t force someone to buy something, but you can encourage them to do so. Selling doesn’t have to be about moving product. It’s about moving ideas to encourage people to make beneficial decisions. In the case of education, that idea their selling is setting kids up for success in the future. Teachers aren’t trying to pull a quick one on their kids like sleazy car salesmen. They’re selling the idea that education matters and learning school stuff is just the baby steps to success in the rest of their life.