There is an old saying that those who can't to do, teach. It it has always annoyed me to no end, because it seems so trite and oversimplified. Nevertheless, I can think of at least one area where it is true. I have worked for one of the most successful sales training firms for the past six years, and have never made a decent sale in my life.
I tried working in sales, but I was a miserable failure. I knew intellectually how it was done of course. I understood psychology very well, and I knew how to engage with people. Nevertheless, when it came to actually trying to clinch a deal, I could not get into it. I was too hyper aware of what was going on in the conversation. I could not simply run the scripts that I had learned in sales training. I could not lose myself in the interaction, or do my job. In short, sales is not for me.
Nonetheless, I have built a career in sales training techniques. It may seem like a contradiction, but it is not. Training sales techniques is pretty easy if you are intelligent. All you need to do is understand how people interact. I can take people apart, dissect them step by step, and write sales training manuals all day. I have even risen to the left where I can instruct other sales trainers. Nonetheless, once I am in the field, I am worthless at it. I don't really care. The retail sales professionals who I have trained are some of the best in the world.
My favorite part is the sales training seminars. I cannot tell you how much I like them. They really provide a safe forum for me to indulge certain megalomaniacal aspects of my ego. I get up there on the stage, pump them up with self-affirmation jargon until they are ready to burst, and lead grown men in cheers that would seem naïve to high schoolers. The actual fundamentals of sales training are easy once you establish the correct psychological grounds. Once you get people hopelessly pumped up over what you are doing, then they will master the sales training techniques in hours. People try to make it more complicated than that so they can justify the amount of money that people spend on sales training. Nonetheless, it is really that simple. The important thing is that works.
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