As an engineer by training I have had a love / hate relationship with sales people. “Why can’t they just sell the product we have instead of some product we don’t yet have” was a constant lament. Don’t get me wrong, my father was a salesman and was, in fact, the top salesman for his company for years. He worked in an industry that relied on repeat sales so his customers were his friends and a sales call was having coffee with a friend.
But having spent the last 7 months as a full-time solo entrepreneur I am reminded of the benefit of having a good salesperson working with you. I am not a salesperson. I would rather do just about anything else than pick up the phone and sell an ad for the Amateur Traveler podcast so instead of picking up the phone I do… just about anything else.
We want for people to appreciate what we do. We want for people to want to be associated with us. But sometimes that does involve picking up the phone and explaining this to people. My writing is improving as is my video editing. I am a good interviewer and audio editor. I can make my own graphics, create and run my own websites. I can create custom themes and plug-ins for my site. I can run engineering teams, manage project and product managers, coax designers, and corral operation groups. But sales, so far eludes me.
So to all the good sales people I have not appreciated in the past, my sincere apologies.