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If you presented the average person with the prompt “Salespeople are …” and asked them to fill in the blank, what do you think they would say?
Daniel Pink conducted this very experiment as part of his research for the book To Sell is Human. When asked to identify the first word that came to mind to describe “sales” or “selling,” the most prevalent answers included “pushy,” “sleazy,” “ugh,” “yuck,” “dishonest,” and “manipulative.”
Okay, but how do you really feel?
Salespeople are no strangers to the stigma associated with their profession, and most laugh it off. But the saddest part about these stinging stereotypes is that most simply aren’t true! For instance, if every salesperson was indeed a liar, there wouldn’t be any satisfied customers to be found. If every salesperson was intensely aggressive, they wouldn’t have any clients. Obviously, neither of these conditions are reality.
In this SlideShare, InsightSquared tackles the damaging labels that often get affixed to those in sales. The next time you feel you’re being judged unfairly based on your job, forward along this post and provide some enlightenment.
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