Selling on a wing and a promise..

Sales is a dirty word to some and a religion to others. Personally I cant help regarding it as a bit of a black art. Prolific sales people seem to use it as a handle on many business challenges and of course sales targets are a fundamental drive to most businesses.

What I wonder about is the driving force of sales. What is the essence that makes peoples blood pressure boil when chasing sales leads and targets? What is the undercurrent which whips otherwise mild mannered people up into blood thirsty commission hunters?

Training courses and sales directors in this field are highly regarded with entire days being spent away from the office, or hours strategising in meeting rooms on how to best ride on the crest of the 'sales wave'. Cold calls are made, then warm calls, and so help you if you dont close.

At the end of the day it all seems to come down to one thing, selling on a promise. A promise of increased efficiency, a promise of popularity, even somewhat dubious promises of sexual magnetism. As a consumer do we ever really hold companies to their promises? All too easy to pick up the newest copy of software for everyone in the office, and promptly resort to performing exactly the same tasks as before making new features redundant. All too easy to buy that new aftershave or moisturiser which promises to take years off and have the opposite sex draping themselves at your feet, and then let it gather dust at the back of the bathroom cabinet. How many of us can honestly say that we reach the spiralling heights that sales teams and marketing professionals offer us on a daily basis.

Smell like an old spice man (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZOm2YhOI4c) is one of the more amusing recent examples. I dont think they could have shoe horned in more glamorisation if they tried which is of course deliberate but illustrates the point. Correct me if I am wrong but the product is for the slightly more geriatric of the population which makes it even more bizarre. Unless they have revised the fragrance they would appear to be promising that your man can smell faintly of working mens club and pipe smoke.

I find myself thinking that if all of the promises made to me by sales people had been true, I would be a sexually charged, super powered efficiency guru who had overwhelmingly good dress sense and the body and poise of a yoga master. Unfortunately this is not the case which leaves me thinking, perhaps I am owed a refund?

Update 26/1/11: 37 Signals point out the folly of the 'Lifetime warranty' sales promise http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2750-think-tanks-no-rhetoric-warranty