Have you ever thought of yourself as a salesperson? Unless you hold a traditional sales role at a company somewhere, my guess would be probably not, but if you take a moment to think about what selling actually is and what you do every day you might be surprised at what you discover. How would you define “selling”? Is it getting someone to buy whatever you are offering? Is it manipulating people to spend money on something they do not need? Is it a deceptive scheme just to make as much money as possible? While maybe parts of all of those are true and I do not know your experience with the sales process, I would argue selling is the art of moving people to embrace what you are offering, whether that be a product or service, idea, process or system, you name it. It is moving someone to accept whatever it is you are offering to them. Of course, this can be wielded in a positive and beneficial way to better a person’s life or it can be used to harm, take advantage of and ultimately hurt people.
Taking this idea of selling into account, think about the things you do every day. Whether you are a student, teacher, engineer, businessperson, lawyer, scientist, parent, babysitter, food service provider, retail worker, you name it; you are in the field of selling. You are moving people to part with their resources whether it be time, money, opinions etc. and choose whatever it is you are offering instead.
We all possess this power of selling in each of our individual ways and it is important for us to think about how we can use it to best make the world a better place. I encourage you in all of your dealings with the people in your life and work to communicate with utmost honestly all for the purpose of trying to make their world a better place for them to live. What kind of a difference can you make?
BoweryJE22