At the end of the day the professional sales guy has only one friend - the one in the mirror. Or more precisely, the person behind the guy in the mirror. The integrity which differentiates the professional from the snake oil.

Selling can be a hard life.

In fact it usually is. We work for people who can't do it, but think they have the right to tell us how to. Customers insist on trying to prove they're smarter, when they know less. Competitors seem to be only interested in destroying our price. Ultimately the bean counters resent paying us the commission.

Hero or Zero

We're always one or the other. Only as good as the next deal, if we won the last. Only as good as the last, if we didn't. Nobody believes in us, apart from us that is.

Snake Oil

Somewhere along the line sales guys picked up a the faint whiff of duplicity. Nobody really trusts us - we would say that, we're selling something. Whatever we say can't really be true.

Our Friend in the Mirror

When the cards have been dealt, the hand played and the winnings collected (whoever wins) we're left with nothing but our integrity. And that's really important. It keeps us going when things get tough. It gives us confidence when we need to push the customer. It confirms we're right when we walk away. In the good old days before the Internet, and CRM, and business process re-engineering people would say the sales guy was as good as his/her Rolodex - that index card system we all used. But they didn't mean the cards, or even the contacts. They meant how those contacts felt about the sales guy. By Rolodex they meant Integrity.

The sales guy was only as good as his/her integrity. Only as good as the trust customers were prepared to invest in the relationship.

Back then successful sales people understood selling is about people. They spent their time helping prospects buy and they never misled a customer.

Sometimes it feels as the world turned and integrity got lost somewhere. Professionals like us should fight like hell to bring it back.

original post at frontofficebox.com