Is Sales Hard?

Make no mistake sales is a hard job to do. People do not like parting with their money. Customers want the best quality products for as little cost as possible even for free. Sales people especially those with sales quotas will usually go the extra mile to please a client just to have a sale especially if it is a high ticket item.

There are difficult or even malicious clients who are aware of the difficulties of a salesperson to meet their sales quotas that they intentionally make the process of purchasing the product of the salesperson difficult to extract as much discount from them.

There are those who abuse their power on the salesperson. They realise that they may decide the career and livelihood of a salesperson and this puts them in a position where they can demand extra products and services from them even to the point of humiliating them.

These are experiences from some salesperson I know which shows how difficult a sales job can be:

The sales managers of a leading pharmaceutical company will train new sales recruits both men and women to condition their minds to handle humiliating situations by ordering them to clean all the cars of the sales managers while still wearing their office suits and dresses.

Another salesperson also working in the pharmaceutical business have to regularly drive his client to and from work. He also has to collect her laundry and do other errands for her.

The doctor client of a pharmaceutical salesperson will not order from her unless she brings her lunch.

We all know that many customers will make a salesperson wait for them even for hours although they have already set an appointment with them. I know of a sales manager in a computer company who was repeatedly told to wait for the entire day for his client only to be told at the end of the day that the client cannot see him.

There are clients who demand that the salesperson go on a date with them before discussing any sales proposals. This is especially true for some female salespersons who have to thwart the romantic advances of their clients and who are even made to pay for the dinner by the client.

There is a salesperson for a liquor company whose daily schedule revolves around going in the office during the day and drinking with his clients at night in bars.

Salespersons who sell products whose weight is heavy have to endure the suffering of carrying these heavy products with them as they introduce it to their clients.

There are also companies that pay for the regular vacation expenses of their clients as well as other similar high ticket bribes just to keep their business with their client.

Many salespersons also drive or commute great distances several times a day to see their clients which can be monotonous.

A salesperson can chase a client for months but still get rejected in the end.

There is also the usually monthly quota that salespersons must meet which is very difficult to do if the products they sell have seasonal sales cycles.

Conclusion

These are just a few things that show how hard selling can be. I am sure there are other stories as well which may even be worse to the ones I told.

Most of the salespersons I know are very likeable, keeps me interested, have a sense of humour, have good social skills and are humble. Maybe their hard experiences from their job is the reason why.