I Am A Rubbish Salesman

No, I'm not selling rubbish. I am a rubbish salesman, nothing else to say, thanks for reading.... Seriously though, I truly am. I am a sales managers' nightmare. I should have cottoned on a long time ago.

I mean, there are plenty of different types of selling but all the ones I've come across so far, well, I'm pretty poor (without the 'r') at. I shall try to explain and maybe you can give me some pointers.

I shared some quality time with a guy, Tony, some thirty odd years ago. We were 'tight' as the expression goes, for a couple of years. We drifted apart at some point and then next thing I knew, he had married, (forgetting my invitation) divorced, immigrated to New Zealand , hey ho,

life moves on. Another friend, as I used to have many, said the 'invite' overlook was a shame as we had 'broke bread' together. The phrase has always stayed with me, it's a great descriptor and for the time we were in each others pockets, it summed things up quite well. Anyway.

He was a 'salesman' the gift of the 'gab', charismatic and ruthless. For a time he worked for an insurance company, selling policies. Smart suits and red ties. He managed to get me an interview with his company, I would get to wear a shirt and a tie, get me. This was my first realisation that 'sales' maybe was not my forte. I had to take a 'test'. Multiple choice style. For the life of me I don't remember the name but it was an 'industry standard' at the time.

It was designed to assess your suitability for the role of 'salesperson' Loads of multiple choice questions. I don't remember them all, of course. However, one group of questions did cause me to furrow my brow. They were about how your view yourself and then about how you think others view you. 'Twisted my melon, man'.

Example. "Do you think that your are a patient person ?" followed by "Do you think other people think you are patient ?"

Again we have " Do you think you are a likeable person ?" and "Do you think other people like you ?" and so and so forth.

For me, these types of questions were difficult. No point in going into that now. Well, after a few days of waiting I didn't get the job, no surprises there. It bothered me, in so much that I felt unfairly treated, I guess. Not even a trial period to see how I faired. The results of the test were the be all and end all, done.

Looking back I can see that they were right, if we're looking at it from a 'threshold' basis. They would have had plenty of applicants so they may as well choose from those that fitted whatever criteria they were looking for. I still slept well.

Here we are, just over thirty years on and I'm still a rubbish sales person but that's OK because I'm not trying to sell anything. Not directly anyway and that's the beauty of what we're doing here. I like to think of myself as more of an 'advisor' or 'assistant'. I'm here to give as much information as I can to help someone make a choice. To guide and to answer their questions.

Works for me.