You do? Good, because there’s a hell of a lot of it coming up. I’ve been rather smug in the past in considering the sales profession a very safe and secure place to be. My thinking went that there will always be stuff to be sold, whether it’s products, services or ideas. That side of the buying/selling equation will stay near enough the same (aside from the shift that has already happened from sale people to internet based sales for commodity goods). On the whole, the changes have been and will be in the market side – what buyers are doing.
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I had a conversation with a management consultant friend at the weekend. “My boss wants me to ‘sell’ more in my day-to-day work, but I’m not so great at all that selling stuff. I tend to just listen to what they need and then try to solve their problems as best I can.” I think there’s a great irony that my consultant friend has a better attitude towards selling than about half the sales people I know – and he doesn’t even know it!