Great ideas that the world would never see happen

The location for the interview was longer than I thought. While in the vehicle I was saying to myself, ‘even if I can get the job it is too far, I can’t’. I arrived and met two other job applicants, within some few minutes a host of job applicants had also arrived for the briefing and interview. The job was about selling advertising spaces. Most of the guys were angry; this is not what they expected. They wanted a managerial position where they would sit everyday and receive big pay cheques at the end of the month.

When I was in school, almost every class session generated new business ideas. I thought I was the only intelligent person till I met another graduate with equally numerous ideas. The truth is that most of these ideas related to talking to managers for sponsor
ship or partnership.

Great ideas need the support of people (both in cash and kind). Some very big ideas need not only cash but links; people who can link you to others.  These things often cannot be done by one man; organizing your own conferences, hosting a TV or radio programme, cause related programmes, special research, inventions and products to mention but a few. People have these ideas but strangely they are handicapped because they don’t know how to sell. In our days, the dreamers are many but real salesmen are few.

Before a person jump’s he must first go down.

Those job applicants were angry because they wanted a managerial position. One of them told me that he couldn’t do it; he didn’t pay hundreds of pounds to go to school to do that kind of job. I think this is why there are numerous people without jobs; no one wants a job that relates to sales and those who want to start their own business fear because they have to sell their ideas to people they don’t know. If you just graduate from school, who would give you a managerial position? Do you have the experience for it? Only a few people would have this opportunity; the rest must start from somewhere.

The Ability to Sell Could Be the Tipping Point of Your Career

Truly great strides in life are often because of a person’s sales ability and this is what most people lack. Introverts for instance, would have great reluctance towards meeting new people and selling their ideas and products to them. The fact is we are taught in the classroom, some things are learnt on the field. Learning how to meet CEOs which is scary to most marketers is what you need for the tipping point in your career; they hold the keys to wealth and they are greatly networked. I believe if you have that ability it would be easier for you to launch your own conference since you would not find it difficult to approach high profile speakers. Some people have abandoned their great ideas because they fear to talk to people.

Sometimes you watch programmes on TV and they are so boring, or the guy presenting it is not doing so well and you know you can do better. He is there because he had the courage to talk to some managers to sponsor his programme. He is there because he can talk to hundreds of people he has never met before. You have brilliant ideas but the world would never know of them because you fear to face those who are not your friends or outside your social class. Everybody has a host of ideas but only those who can sell their ideas to our society would succeed. When you can show those managers your ideas and convince them to support you, you’d soon be selling lots of cars, doing big TV programmes, etc. At least you would be able to do what you really want to do in life.   Sometimes I think our society lacks the best of leaders because the truly great are phlegmatic.

The Most Important Things in Life Cannot Be Purchased With Money

Things like air, love among others cannot be purchased with money. You have to acquire them or make yourself available to enjoy them. Sales ability is like that. It is like learning how to type without looking on the key board.  

                                         

In my own estimation, sales is about 15% of marketing. It was Peter Drucker who said the ‘the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous’ but a person might be deceiving himself if he thinks he can do marketing without selling. If you can’t sell, it means you have lost 15 percent of your ability as a marketer and your goods might never live your room because selling is the door through which your products go to customers. With the difficulty in our days you need the full 100% of your abilities to survive. Sales is equally important as marketing. You might not want to be a salesman but you still have to learn it. Somebody somewhere has the resources you need in abundance and he or she is waiting for you, but if you don’t approach him for it, you can dream all the gargantuan ideas but you might never achieve them.

There is this African proverb that says ‘your beauty might get you married but it is your character that would make it a success’. This is so because married women with bad character get divorced in no time. I think there are ordinary sales men because they don’t sell anything that interests managers. Some people have been ordinary salesmen because they have no ideas to sell to the world; they just sell other people’s commodities. Whatever you propose to those managers should bring them value; it should be an opportunity that they know they cannot have from anywhere, something that would make them thank their stars that it didn’t fall in the hands of their competitors first.

You need confidence, persuasion, good communication and a good product to sell. Use the ability to sell to back your ideas and you would achieve a lot.