Sales Is Like…
Sales, like life, is an intricate blend of the straight forward and obvious, with the complex and mysterious, this is why both sales and life are just perfect for metaphors, and perfect metaphors for one another.
Like is like a rose, life’s a bitch, (and all that stuff); selling is like sports, selling is art or is it science, and a few others we are familiar with. Sales metaphors can be insightful; they can accentuate a high of a excellent sale, or push you to the brink when things aren’t going well. In the end, this could easily lead one to believe that “sales” is itself a metaphor, if not for life certainly for large slices of it.
If you look at some of the metaphors commonly used in sales, they all seem to go to primal aspect of day to day life, even day to day survival. This is not a surprise when you consider that revenue, the very business that sales is accountable for and needs to deliver, is the lifeblood of most organizations. Without revenue, these organizations waste away to nothing. So while many may not feel comfortable about by it, the hunting metaphor is core to sales. If the sales rep is successful, the organization thrives, if the rep is unsuccessful, the organism is weakened, sufficient unsuccessful efforts, and it fades. You may feel this is a bit strong, reckon of the origin of the word organization, organ, life; it more than fits.
Some like to soften things up a small and they prefer spots analogies or metaphors, and that’s fine too, but it still leaves things in a somewhat adversarial state. After all, unless it is an individual sport like running, there is usually a winner and even if you don’t call them a loser, the non-winner. When you examine the sport-based metaphors in sales, they usually are anchored in team sports, football, baseball, all with winners and losers. Don’t get me incorrect, I reckon that these metaphors go a long way in helping sales people know what they have to do to win, they just have to do things in a way where they are beating the competition not the buyers, and for some that is still a challenge.
Alas there are many sales managers who do see encourage an “us vs. them” atmosphere in their sales teams. Anyone they don’t like who doesn’t grind the way llike to grind is “not a team player”. While rallying their teams in the “bullpen” they wind their reps up by the same battle cries used in sports.
At the other end of the spectrum are metaphors of a uncommon sort that also go well in unfolding sales and selling. Because we are a family blog, we won’t explore the full spectrum of amorous or sexual metaphors as they relate to sales. But if you have spent any amount of time in a sales pit you know the graphic, accurate and at era motivating analogies to be savoured and profited from if executed properly.
In the end, I still reckon the best sales metaphors are the ones relating sales to the arts, for me the best fit is with music. The skill, art, and discipline of taking the same vital elements agreed to all but taking it further than others through a creative process. All starts out with the same eight notes, yet how you interpret and do delivers entirely uncommon results. Just look at all uncommon take on any of Beethoven’s symphonies.
There are many sales people who are brilliant craftsmen, if they were musicians they would be welcomed into any of the world’s orchestras. Others on the other hand are right soloists, taking the common and accepted norms, turn them surrounded by out and make art. Just as every sales team has those very few, who are continuously demonstrating the discipline and executing the sale in a way that elevates it to an art form. You can lecture musicians and sales reps the basics, the techniques, the theory, but it takes and artist to do at highly consistent level.
So whichever way you choose to look at it, at the end you can’t help but land on the fact that sales is a metaphor on to itself.