{"id":3874,"date":"2018-02-13T21:20:36","date_gmt":"2018-02-13T21:20:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/?p=3874"},"modified":"2018-02-13T21:20:36","modified_gmt":"2018-02-13T21:20:36","slug":"confession-im-afraid-of-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/confession-im-afraid-of-sales\/","title":{"rendered":"Confession: I&#8217;m Afraid of Sales"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Friday, I will be making a mock-sales call in front of my potential future employer. I&#8217;ve read the prompt, looked over the script,\u00a0memorized the &#8220;verbatim&#8221; lines, even watched a YouTube video about sales calls, and still every time I think about what I&#8217;ll be doing at 1pm on Friday in sunny South Carolina, I desperately wish to be in the safety of Mr. Sweet&#8217;s classroom instead.<\/p>\n<p>As excited as I am to have the opportunity of a &#8220;big girl&#8221; job just within my grasp, I can&#8217;t help but come back to one tiny dilemma &#8212; I&#8217;m terrified of sales.<\/p>\n<p>Most of my fear comes from the perception of salespeople. They&#8217;re slimy, slick, greasy, misleading, disingenuous, and obnoxious. As a self-proclaimed people person, I would like to think that I am none of those things. The potential of going into sales means those assumptions will be made about my profession and my character, which I&#8217;m not too thrilled about.<\/p>\n<p>I am also anxious about the outcome. I&#8217;ve never really tried sales, so what if I&#8217;m awful at it? What if every time I pick up the phone the person on the other line says &#8220;no thanks&#8221;?<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"vt3NVQwgS5RQtIfMQIDhRA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/527951821\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'vt3NVQwgS5RQtIfMQIDhRA',sig:'R4JTNNivhQYR8r1BSfqzmV5a0kfb2bFDfOPk1uNXgKw=',w:'507px',h:'338px',items:'527951821',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>My dad has always told me I should go into sales, but not because I&#8217;ve actually sold him on anything. In fact, he usually makes that comment after my millionth attempt to persuade him to get me a puppy for Christmas. I&#8217;ve never given up my pursuit, but let the record show no dog has ever been in my possession.<\/p>\n<p>With this overwhelming failure, a series of doubts and fears, and an impending interview haunting my waking hours, you can probably see why I am a bundle of nerves. However, I have come to a conclusion that offers me some solace. Everyone is in sales. It&#8217;s nearly unavoidable. I know that doesn&#8217;t sound like a beaming ray of hope, but let me explain.<\/p>\n<p>If nearly 40% of the current workforce is in some sort of non-sales selling in their day-to-day job, then at some point in my career I will have to get comfortable with it. There are two ways to enter a pool, you can wade into the water step by step or you can jump into the deep end. Jumping into the deep end of sales by starting out in a position that includes cold calls and traditional sales tactics may be the perfect introduction of what to do and what not to do.<\/p>\n<p>The skills I could learn in typical sales roles are translatable to anything I would want to do later in my career &#8212; start my own business, marketing, authorship, etc.<\/p>\n<p>Though I feel drastically underprepared to jump into sales in a few short months (God willing), I have been told that most practical skills are taught on the job. For the time being, I can focus on the characteristics of salespeople that people trust &#8212; genuineness, honesty, and reliability.<\/p>\n<p>Breaking the stereotype of the greasy car salesman is one way of conquering my own fears, staying true to myself, and redefining the view of salespeople in our society.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Friday, I will be making a mock-sales call in front of my potential future employer. I&#8217;ve read the prompt, looked over the script,\u00a0memorized the &#8220;verbatim&#8221; lines, even watched a YouTube video about sales calls, and still every time I think about what I&#8217;ll be doing at 1pm on Friday in sunny South Carolina, I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":159,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,45,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hiring-salespeople","category-non-sales-selling","category-perspectives-on-sales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/159"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3874"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3876,"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3874\/revisions\/3876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}