Personal Selling White Collar Sales Vs Blue Collar Sales

We have all been there, when we have hung up on a tele-caller, right after him/her giving an introduction about the company or the purpose of the call. I believe we do that because we have always perceived salespeople in a certain manner, where we think they will waste our time, or they will irritate us with their calls. I believe they might do that but aren't we all doing our jobs? Rather than disconnecting the call, one can always be clear about being interested or not interested in a product/service.

A lot of times, telesales people lose their motivation after their first few calls because of people hanging up on them. We can all be a little empathetic and just tell that "You are not interested at the moment" or whatever could be your reason rather than hanging up on someone, who is doing their job.

Let me share my personal experience when I started my journey in the sales industry. Not being from a Tier 1 or Tier 2 college is an issue in India, because top employers will not consider your application/CV. When you land up in a domestic sales job, respect is just a word in the books. Your employer would ask you to work in command and achieve by all means, "I want the targets achieved or you are out".

A salesperson must complete the targets even when people will not entertain him/her. Take for instance, the people who sell credit cards. Do you remember the last time you came across one of them and smiled, even if you are not buying anything from them? Well, we do not even care to pay attention or sometimes smirk at them.

When it comes to work, people outside sales industry think that salespeople have big egos because they are typically social and extroverted. This ends up with an assumption of salespeople being overconfident and ego-hungry. Ego is one of the last motivators for salespeople. According to Salesforce, the biggest drivers are 40 percent money, 30 percent job satisfaction, and only 12 percent recognition.

Some people even claim, "It's an easy job with good pay". Well, depending on the industry, location, product and performance of a salesperson, they get compensated. But the major reason for that compensation is their highly challenging job.

LinkedIn 2018 report, sales was the second hardest position to hire for, they are one of the most sought-after recruits in part because the job is so challenging. Long working hours makes it even worse:

·        28% of Sales Directors/VPs are working more than 60 hours per week

·        Only 9% of Directors/VPs work 31-40 hours per week

·        Only 19% of Sales Reps work 31-40 hours per week

·        Only 21% of Sales Managers work 31-40 hours per week

And 54 percent describes their job as stressful and 70 percent describe their lifestyle as challenging.

The purpose of this article is not to boast about how salespeople work hard but it is to put the word out. Why is a sales job frowned upon? Why are there so many judgments about them? Why are they considered to be the ones care about making money? Why are they considered to be the ones who does not want to improve?

There are so much that people just presume about a sales job. Daniel Pink stated in his book "To Sell is Human" that "Like it or not, we are all in sales". We are one way or the other persuading someone in our life, be it your customers, team members, your boss or even your friends. Every time you convince someone for something, you are selling. The only difference is that it is not a product or service.

I hope the next time we interact with someone from sales, we have a different perspective about that person. A normalized approach, just like how we have for every other profession would count as a step.

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Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sales-blue-collar-job-world-white-collars-himanshu-choudhary

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