I’m not a
salesman.
In my youth I
tried selling door to door (not my idea – a family home/ business.) I was never
comfortable with walking up to someone’s door and bothering them to try to get
them to buy something.
In my late teens,
I applied for an advertised office job and was told that the job had been
filled, but they did “happen to have” some sales openings. I spent a week
training to sell Filter Queen vacuum cleaners (this shows you how in short
supply good salesmen are – they have to trick people into trying the position.)
It was a really good vacuum, and if I’d had $400 (in the late ‘70’s) and needed
a vacuum cleaner I would have bought it, but asking other people to buy one
just wasn’t working for me.
I could probably
sell something in a store – but that’s only because people are coming in
intending to buy. That’ not really selling – it’s just customer service. A real
salesman would know how to get the people to come into the store in the first
place.
I was thinking
about the woeful state of my ePublishing sales. Yeah, I’ve only been trying
this for a couple of years, and I’m supposed to be patient and watch those
sales figures slowly climb as I build up stock (stories) on my shelves, but I
don’t think it’s happening the way it’s supposed to.
It could just be
that my product isn’t any good, but I don’t think that’s it; I’ve gotten close
enough to a “traditional publisher” sale on some of my stories to merit a personal
(instead of form) rejection. If quality was all that mattered, it should translate
into sales – not into the drought that 2014 is turning into.
Fact is, there’s A
LOT of product out in the market, and A LOT of competition. It isn’t just the
ability to write – I have to be able to SELL that writing; show someone that I
have stories out there, and convince them that they want to read them.
This adds to my
conclusion that SALESMEN ARE GODS.
This may just be
how our culture works, but I think it’s something more tightly bound into human
nature, and explains why CAPITALISM is ultimately the fairest and most
productive economic system. People decide what they want and what they are
willing to buy / sell for what price. Someone who can sell can influence the
process.
But it’s not just
about goods.
Who can get
buy-in? Collaboration (pulling groups of people together for a common goal)
counts on somehow getting these people to cooperate. Historically, this used to
be done this by force of arms or religion (some places still do it this way),
but there is a built-in resistance, a less than 100% effort given, when you
coerce people. In the modern world (USA, anyway), we count on our salesmen to
convince people that either we have what they want or they want what we’re
selling. In every transaction, every relationship, we have to be able to sell –
our ideas, our desires, our product.
(Politics IS
sales.) Life is a big bartering session, and if you want something, you have to
be able to convince the other party that they want what you have to offer, too.
A good salesman finds the WIN-WIN to make it happen.
I want money in my
pocket. You want to be entertained. I have a story you’d be willing to pay to
read. There; that should work.
Just saying….
<<<>>>
William Mangieri’s writing (including
his latest ePublication “The Re-Entanglement of Grant Decker”) can be found in
many places, such as:
·
His Amazon
Author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B008O8CBDY
·
Barnes &
Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/william-mangieri?store=book&keyword=william+mangieri
·
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/NoTimeToThink
·
Createspace: https://www.createspace.com/pub/simplesitesearch.search.do?sitesearch_query=william+mangieri&sitesearch_type=STORE
Connect with him on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/NoTimeToThink
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