Reps talking too much and listening too little was the clear front-runner; reps being time wasters was a distant second. So what are these reps so busily talking about?

More often than not, people “fell into” or “wound up” in sales, having begun elsewhere. It’s not a problem, per se, (see opening paragraph) but it does beg the question of what it means to be a sales professional and it has spurred my interest in exploring Sales as a Profession (SaaP).

This suggests getting some experience, skill development, and competence, before expecting to cash in. At the same time, it also suggests the learning stops when the earning begins. I doubt this is the intended message but, to be clear, if the learning stops the earning will stop too. Sales mastery, not necessarily the opposite of hacking, but an extension of it, is lifelong learning and continuous growth.

During the lockdown, the question on pretty much everyone’s mind was/is, “When will we get back to ‘normal’?” Or, “Will we ever get back to ‘normal’?” Normal being defined as the way things were pre-COVID. It seems pretty clear that we won’t be getting back to anything but moving ahead to a “new normal.” If this is the case, again, what would the New Sales Normal look like?