Sales. Sure, we talk about sales and various definitions from different authors and salespeople, however, I thought I would dig a bit deeper into this and see what other definitions I could find and what they said. Get ready, this could be a wild ride. Who knows what I will find!
- Oxford Dictionary: the exchange of a commodity; the action of selling something
- Seems rather basic and straight forward. Nothing nearly as interesting or descriptive as we have seen in class. On to the next one!
- BusinessDictionary.com: The activity or business of selling products or services.
- Wow, still falling short. You gotta love how straight forward and concise these definitions are but still tend to fall a bit short.
- Merriam Webster: Operations or activities involved in promoting and selling goods or services.
- Eh. This definition still doesn’t live up to the way Pink and others describe sales but it is getting better.
- Collins Dictionary: the profession of trying to sell on behalf of the company
- This definition seems to be a bit outdated and not really current for the way sales works today. Moving on…
- Dictionary.com: Of, relating to, or engaging in sales
- I think this might take the award for being the most lackluster and uninformative definition.
- Zorian Rotenburg via Insights Squared: Sales is simply this- it’s helping your prospects.
- I think this is a great definition to end with and one that seems to echo what Pink and others are trying to say. Sales is about the customer and what they need or want. It’s about treating your customers the way you would like to be treated. Not as a someone who is simply going to be another number for your sales quota but someone who can benefit and gain value from your product.
There are so many different definitions and views of what sales is but the biggest difference seems whether the definition is customer or sales focused. Today, the focus is on the customer so the idea/definition should be based on the customer as well. That is something important that I know I truly taking to heart as I learn more and more. Happy Monday!
BoweryJE22
I think at it’s base sales truly is the first definition you listed. However, over time definitions have changed to include the process of sales, not just the end goal. Cool write-up!