Sales can be a great career. But, like anything, there are benefits and drawbacks. If you're considering a career in sales, maybe this will be a good place to start. I hope the list will grow over time.

Let's help future salespeople weigh the good, the bad, and the ugly by adding to this list of pros and cons of the sales profession in the comments section!

Pros

• Flexibility
• Potentially unlimited income
• Customer interaction
• Meet many different people
• Relative level of control over your destiny
• Transferrable skills
• Opportunity everywhere
• Potential for entertaining interactions (potential customers can throw curve balls...)

Cons

• Irregular income
• Demanding expectations
• Unpredictable schedule
• Constant pressure to find the next opportunity
• Moving from "hero to zero"

Again, help future salespeople by adding to this list in the comments section. Thanks!

One of the many tragedies of the American Civil War was that technology outpaced battlefield tactics. Civil War soldiers fought the same way as their forefathers in past wars. The problem was that their predecessors didn’t have the same high-powered (and surprisingly accurate) rifles. The results were horrendous.

A similar problem exists in sales.

It’s no secret that the best salespeople are customer-focused -- they treat their customers (and potential customers) with the utmost respect.

I believe that a measure of our respect for others is how we describe them.

Unfortunately, there's a handful of offensive sales-words that have lingered. Here’s a list I believe we should try to stop using -- I'll be the first to admit I use some of them, but I'm working on it...

• Close: Do you want to be closed? If you’re like most people, you like to buy things, but probably don’t want to be “sold.” How about saying we “Completed” a sale?
• Pitch: This is the single most offensive word in sales. It’s a sale, not a baseball game. I’ve already talked about this, anyway. Let's call them sales "Presentations."
• Prospect/Lead: I don’t want to be a name on a card, I want to be a potential part of a mutually beneficial relationship. Is it better to call someone “a Potential Client?”
• Salesman: This is a sexist leftover from years-gone-by. Even if you're talking about a man, I think it's better to say "Salesperson."

The question is really: “Would you want to be any of these things?"

Recently, I was talking with a Vice President of Sales who said he thought we should completely eliminate the phrase “sales process” in favor of “buying process” to put the focus where it belongs -- on the client. He's certainly right about where our focus should be, however I don’t think we need to go that far. It is -- and always will be -- a "sale."  But, by focusing on our customers, we’re far more likely to achieve success.

Give some careful thought to how you describe your customers and let’s get our language caught up with the times.

It's a question we hear a lot:

Should I spend my time with top performing salespeople or bottom performers?

Aren't you better off investing your time with responsive salespeople? After all, a good coach brings value to great players and sub-par ones. The same is true in sales management. However, if the salesperson you're coaching won't heed your advice, it's a waste of everyone's time. Right?

Responsive salespeople are...

• Humble enough to take criticism,
• Smart enough to solicit it, and
• Willing enough to act on it.

Responsive salespeople also want to improve themselves. They accomplish that with more than just your coaching. They look for ways to learn more about professional sales. They understand what it takes to be a top-performer. That's NEVER settling for stagnation.

The flip side of this coin is that you've got to offer good coaching. A sales manager who gives poor suggestions or old-school ideas will do more harm than good. So...

As a manager of salespeople, what are you doing to ensure you're a good coach?

In other words:

• What books are you reading?
• What seminars are you attending?
• Who do you turn to for coaching?

If you're not constantly investing in your own skill-set, you run the risk of becoming irrelevant. In order to offer valuable coaching, you've got to be improving yourself.

Salespeople face rejection daily. And handling it appropriately is a critical sales lesson. Here are two, very different tales about handling rejection:

The Wrong Way
to Handle Rejection

Just like any business, we are regularly approached by people looking for jobs. And, because we believe managers should always be on the lookout for talent, if we come across a resume that catches our attention, we'll dig deeper. We are, after all, in the business of helping sales-driven organizations identify, select, and develop top salespeople!

Anyway, a few weeks ago, we arranged a quick phone call with a gentleman who had reached out to us about a job as a facilitator of our sales training programs. I sat in on the call.

It began badly (he was late) and proceeded poorly (put simply, he just wasn't a fit for our clients). We told him we'd be in touch.

We discussed it internally to make sure we were all "on the same page" and determined that, based on the phone call, it didn't make sense for us to proceed with him. So, we sent him an e-mail letting him know we didn't think he'd be a fit and, as a result, we didn't need to move forward.

He responded to us...

You are a coward. Why didn't you tell me this man-to-man . . .

Yes. He is correct. We could have called him, but sending an e-mail is a fairly standard practice.

Regardless of the mode we chose, his response was rude, short-sighted, and unprofessional. It did nothing more than solidify in our minds that we'd made the right decision. Why would we ever put a facilitator who handles rejection like that in front of our clients?

That's Story-of-Rejection number one...Here's number two...

The Right Way
to Handle Rejection

Several months ago, we were in the very early stages of a full-scale sales training program with a client that offers B2B consulting services. Just before our project began, one of their salespeople was in a fierce battle for a significant piece of business. Unfortunately, she lost. Fair and square. You can't win every deal. The salesperson responded in the way we teach: Professionally. She said she understood why they decided to go another route, but hoped she could remain in touch. Her message was gracious and understanding. In short, it was the right way to handle rejection.

A few months passed and -- seemingly out-of-the-blue -- the decision-maker who'd rejected her, suddenly downloaded a whitepaper from her company's website (I could write volumes about how her company's marketing and sales departments employed Sales 2.0 technology to make that happen, but I'll save it for another post). She immediately sent an e-mail to "check in" and say "thanks for downloading" the whitepaper. Here's what she got back (I eliminated the competitor's name)...

I'm ready to move forward with you, after all. [XXXX] didn't work out. I've got a budget in mind of $15k - $20k. I know your stuff works. Let's talk about a December roll-out. Please call me tomorrow in the morning.

Nice!!!

The moral of the stories? Always, always, always behave in a professional manner.

Here's why:

As a direct result of the way our client's salesperson handled rejection, she earned the business in the long-run. On the other hand, the candidate we interviewed doesn't stand a chance with us.

According to our research, regardless of what you do, Personal Accountability is the most critical personal skill you can exhibit.

Personal accountability, by our definition, is...

The willingness to take responsibility for one's own actions.

A person who's able to take the blame for mistakes (and the credit for wins) is far more effective at any job than someone who's not. There are a lot of common sense reasons for this:

• Personally accountable people are more fun to be around because they're not busy casting blame elsewhere.
• Personally accountable people are better team-players because others trust them.
• Personally accountable people have more experience because they try things and learn from them.
• Personally accountable people receive more opportunity because others seek them out.
• Personally accountable people climb the corporate ladder faster because they're not hiding.

Now, of course, I'm not talking about a bumbling idiot who constantly makes mindless mistakes (but still takes the blame). Instead, I'm talking about the kind of person who is in the business of improving himself, his lot in life, and the people around him. The kind of person who, in that process of improvement, is willing to stand up and say, "Yes. I did make a mistake, but I'm going to learn from it." The kind of personally accountable person who's also a continuous learner. Somebody who wants to make some kind of a difference and is willing to do the tough things to succeed.

So, what does this mean to YOU? Simply this: If your responsibilities include hiring salespeople, identifying candidates with personal accountability is critical to your success.

There's a fine line between confidence and arrogance. Here's what I mean...

• Confidence is the feeling or belief that someone can rely on you.
• Arrogance is having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities.

Here are some differences between the two.

1. Arrogance is exaggerated, meaning it's "larger" than reality. Confidence is a suitable dose of reality.
2. Confidence is given to you, over time, by others. Arrogance, on the other hand, is something you give off.
3. Arrogance can be masked for a short time as confidence.
4. Perhaps most importantly: Confidence is good. Arrogance is bad.

Confident or Arrogant?

The moral is this: Prospects and customers want to deal with a confident salesperson. They'll eagerly run away from an arrogant one.

So, as a sales manager, how do you find salespeople who are on the confident side of the spectrum?

After all, it can be difficult to tell whether a particular candidate is unnecessarily arrogant or appropriately confident during a short interview. In fact, it's sometimes even difficult for people to tell how they come across to others. And, that's for good reason; self-perception can be vastly different from reality.

Here are a few ways I've used to tell whether someone is arrogant in an interview setting:

• Ask them about a time they had to "eat crow" or admit they were wrong. Confident people willingly share, but arrogant ones have trouble with it.
• Make the interview a looooonnnng one. Arrogance can be masked as confidence for only so long.
• Use an assessment that measures a person's self-perception. Nothing like knowing what's beneath the surface!

What else have you done to make sure?

It's a Numbers Game

The ugly truth about sales is that it is, always has been, and always will be a “numbers game.” The more people a salesperson sees (or talks to), the more revenue. Period.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of new, different, and exciting sales tactics promising ammo to salespeople who want to avoid this troubling truth.

Sales is a ratio: Leads to Sales.

• The more leads, the more sales.
• The fewer leads, the fewer sales.

Even if you have bad leads, the more of them you have, the more sales you'll eventually make. Sure, it'll be harder, but the ratio still works.

Whether out of fear or laziness, there are some salespeople who refuse to move beyond excuses in order to get in front of more qualified prospects.

We teach that a qualified prospect has five, key characteristics. And the salespeople who fill their funnels with qualified prospects make more sales.

Technology

Regardless of the advances in Sales 2.0 technology, the number of clients your team wins will always be directly related to the number of people they get in front of. That being said, there are two things technology can do. It can either help the best salespeople increase the number of qualified prospects they see. Or, in the worst case, it can be a distraction -- or crutch -- to hide behind. Some salespeople even get bogged down in negativity that can appear in places like Twitter. Smart salespeople understand how sales has changed. They use technology to do things like...

• Find supremely qualified prospects
• Maintain meaningful contact with clients
• Identify prospects' needs and wants before they meet with them.

The Truth

So that’s the truth: At the end of the day, sales is a numbers game. And, if you’ve got the right salespeople in place, they’re constantly striving to raise both sides of the ratio (more prospects, which leads to more clients)!

Is there some other “ugly truth” to sales?

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Don't forget to download our highly popular (free) whitepaper called "The 21 Biggest Myths in Sales."

You may be surprised to learn that what you thought you knew about selling is not only untrue, but totally counterproductive! Read this special report for the truth!

In this morning's Wall Street Journal, NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker, was asked how long he expected to keep his job after the proposed Comcast takeover. He responded by saying, "Nobody is entitled to any job."

At first I wanted to disagree with him (what about a self-employed entrepreneur?). But, you know, I think he's right.

There's a great book by Dr. Tony Alessandra, Frank Sarr, and Pamela Larsen Truax called Performance Counts And Accountability Pays! The title -- by itself -- is applicable to what Zucker was saying. He was right because, in order to keep a job, everyone must perform and be accountable for their performance.

Performance is the act or process of carrying out some task.

Accountability is taking responsibility for the results. Whatever they are.

And, with that in mind, Zucker's right on! Even a self-employed entrepreneur owes her next paycheck to superior performance for her clients. Entitlement is a dangerous threat to anyone. And it's one of the quickest ways to sure-fire failure.

Perhaps nowhere is the concept that Performance Counts and Accountability Pays more true than in sales. The secret is hiring only superior performers for your team. And the best way to do that? Assessments. Period.

Buyer's remorse is a feeling of regret a buyer has after making a purchasing decision.

It can occur after you buy a pair of shoes, a piece of industrial equipment, or consulting services. It's a big let-down for any salesperson to win a sale only to get a call saying, "I gave it some thought, and I've changed my mind." Salespeople have to use caution.

In your role as a professional salesperson, you've got to combat buyer's remorse from the very beginning. Here are three things you can do:

1. Learn exactly what your prospect is looking for.

2. Deliver that to them, in the way they'd like to receive it.

3. Congratulate your new customer on their decision. Tell them it was the right one.

++++

Don't forget to download our highly popular (free) whitepaper called "The 21 Biggest Myths in Sales."

You may be surprised to learn that what you thought you knew about selling is not only untrue, but totally counterproductive! Read this special report for the truth!

Recently, I was thinking about how much "things" have changed in the last few years. It occurred to me that just the last half decade has brought a lot of it. The time since 2005 has had some surprising impacts on sales…

1. New ways to maintain, manage, and multiply relationships.

Today, we’re able to remain in close contact with people we would have lost touch with in the 1990s. Sometimes, that can be a bad thing.  In fact, according to one study, as many as 20% of British divorces cite online social networks as a cause. This connectedness has serious implications for your sales team.

2. Social networks (online and off) as a critical source of info.

Not only are we able to maintain, manage, and multiply our relationships, but we can also now use them to get (and share) more information. People put much more value on the information they get from their friends whom they perceive as unbiased (or at least with their best interests in mind). This is true of our “online” networks, too. Think about the number of people a recent college graduate can contact because of her Facebook account! The average person has 130 friends on Facebook. Social media means people don’t lose touch with each other the way they did in the past.

3. Every market has become more crowded.

Whether you’re selling heavy equipment, software, gears, or soft drinks, your marketplace has almost certainly become more crowded. I think that’s because it’s cheaper now than ever before to start a business. Technology has made markets more accessible. Of course, a crowded market means lower prices. Unless your sales team knows how to get a premium price. Today’s difficult economy has eliminated some of that competition, but not all of it.

4. Buying decisions have been pushed higher up.

This has become more true in the last three years. Decisions that used to be made by mid-level managers are now made a step-or-two higher. This, I think, is because of the economy. I don’t see it changing. People are spending money again, but they’re still trying to figure out how to do it in this “new” economy.

5. Larger groups of people are being asked to make decisions.

In order to spread risk, and to ensure nothing gets missed, committees are more frequently assigned to make purchasing decisions. This has serious implications for the way your sales department approaches opportunities with their prospects. How much attention do they pay to the people who aren't in the room, but have influence?

6. It’s harder to get face-to-face with prospects.

Prospects are becoming more guarded with their time than they’ve been in the past. It’s more difficult to get face-to-face with them. It’s becoming more important to justify your reasons for asking for their time.

7. Prospects have access to more information than ever before.

In the past, it was almost a sure-bet that your prospect had less information about your offering (or possibly even their problem) than you. That’s not the case anymore. Today, you can’t be sure what your prospect knows. Until you ask.

8. Personal positioning has become easier and more essential.

Salespeople can more easily become the trusted business advisors their prospects expect and their customers demand. The first step is to listen. Are your salespeople listening to the "twittersphere"? Might their customers benefit from a blog about how to better use your product? Could your sales team publish one as an account management tool?

9. People who understand technology increasingly in the “drivers’ seats.”

People who can harness the power of technology have the opportunity to drive revenue. The Sales 2.0 movement acknowledges the fact that technology enhances a salesperson’s ability to facilitate a buying decision. Salespeople who know how to use technology to their advantage will see a higher return on their investment of time.

What else? What have I missed? How else has our profession changed?