You are always selling. You are always pitching.
When you are not selling your product/service to a customer, you are still selling.
In school, you pitch your youth and earnestness to earn some knowledge and intellect.
Among peers, you pitch your ideas and recommendations in exchange for being identified and getting membership.
During an interview, you are pitching your education, past experiences and reputation in exchange for a job.
In a restaurant, you are pitching you look and pocketbook in exchange for the ability to sit and have a decent meal.
At work, you sell your hard work and skills in return for a paycheck, in return for promotion and even in return for keeping a job.
When blogging, you are selling your ideas and pitching your thoughts so you can earn more friends/readers/comments.
This sounds really pessimistic and weird to some people … but I know differently. At no time in his life, does a man not perform the act of selling. Even a sage, sitting alone on the mountain top is selling his complete devotion and time in exchange for eternal peace and knowledge.
So why is selling considered such a bad thing? Why do people need to get over their fear of selling?
Often, I am discounted as a salesperson because I am one of those “programmer types”. And yet, when I do go ahead and close a sale, it’s not because of my ability to deal with computers. It’s still because of my ability to deal with people and sell.
This, of course, leads to another entirely different write-up on competition
16 Apr 2007 at 4:12 pm
Hi Vinit, TCP turns two tomorrow. Please drop in if you can :-) Just thought I’d say hello to some early visitors.
TCP
17 Apr 2007 at 12:46 pm
May I add that at the time of courtship, a person is again selling something or is that too sacrosanct to be called a sales pitch?
The way I look at it: “to gain other’s acceptance, we inadvertantly ending selling ourselves”.
The question is “So what?”
17 Apr 2007 at 1:22 pm
“So what?”
Well, the point of this post was not to list out what is considered selling and what isn’t.
I was trying to rant about how selling is an everyday thing and not a “specialized” occupation. And still, it is so difficult for people to accept a sales pitch.
If you are ever in a sales position (selling) you will understand the kind of superiority complex potential customers sometimes have.
It’s not a bad thing, after all, *you* are the one trying to close the sale … *you* have something that they have and *you* are trying to sell them something that they don’t understand the need of.
So it’s customer education + sales. And thats horrible tough.
Like I said, just a rant. Moving along now!