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We All Work in Sales
My first lesson in the importance of sales came in college. We had a visiting VC who asked our class what the most important activity in business is. I quickly raised my hand and said “sales”. I got a bunch of strange looks from the class until the VC said: “You are absolutely right.”Â
When I worked at Dynix the CEO made a comment that always resonated with me: We all work in sales. What does that mean? Do we all - every employee - really work in sales? Does the accountant work in sales? Does the purchasing manager work in sales? Does the HR specialist work in sales? YES.
I was in a conversation this morning with our rock star director of sales, Ron Hartley about our rock star director of marketing, Ryan Ewer. Ryan came to 10Speed from Myfamily.com where he ran their affiliate program. Ryan has great contacts in the state and in the industry. In that discussion, I made this point: we all work in sales. Ryan may be in marketing but in reality he works in sales along with all the other employees at 10Speed. I would never sit back and wonder if we should tap Ryan’s contacts or have him make an introduction because he technically works in a “non-sales” position. That’s crazy. I believe so strongly in sales that I think a person should never be considered for the CEO post unless he/she has a strong proven track record in sales.
I think titles on business cards should read like this: Sales/Accounting Manager or Purchasing/Sales or Human Resources Manager/Sales and especially Sales/CEO. We all work in sales and until that is ingrained into your staffs minds you will never reach your full potential as a business.
When you have that mentality driven into all your staff’s minds - that everyone works in sales - the culture of your business changes and becomes focused on this most important of business activities. That’s what enables your organization to reach the next level.
Excellent point, especialy as a small company everyone must realize that this is truly the case.
Left by Wil Reynolds on 10/02/2006[...] In connection to Chris Knudsen’s post about how “We all work in sales,” Seth Godin says everybody is a marketer, and I couldn’t agree more. [...]
Left by Everybody is a marketer | Russell Page on 10/17/2006[...] I just read Russ Page’s great post on entrepreneurs being marketers by the very nature of who they are. He references a post I wrote a month or two ago about everybody working in sales. Thanks, Russ. I’ve been stirring over this issue hard lately. Here’s my take… [...]
Left by ChrisKnudsen.biz » Marketing Talent is What’s Missing on 10/19/2006