This is part two of a three part sales blog series with sales tips on our personal priorities and how it is impossible to separate them from our sales career.

Sales Tips From My First Boss
I had just started my first job out of college. I was 22 years old and thought my 38-year-old boss was ancient. Not worth listening to. He once told me that, “People who are going through a divorce have trouble selling for almost a year. Family and friendships can impact you more positively or negatively than people know.” I found little reason to listen. What did he know? Why did I care about this little tidbit of non-information? I wasn’t even married.

I didn’t realize this morsel of wisdom would help me manage people in the future and help me through my own difficult times down the road. Your family and friends are everything in your life. This was another of the important sales tips an experienced sales professional would give me when I was still just a sales newbie.

“Know what a camera tripod is? Our family and friends are one of the legs.”

Lessons Learned By A Rookie Sales Manager
About ten years later I was working for a different company and had been promoted to my first sales management position. I knew I could sell, but I had no idea how to be a sales manager. I was scared to death. One of the people that worked for me had recently lost a child. How do you handle that? What do you say? What should I expect? Would this affect their sales?

Then I remembered what my first boss told me. If it applied to divorce, it had to apply to this tragedy as well. I knew this sales professional’s sales levels would almost certainly decline and I should plan accordingly. I did, and we worked through things together. Ultimately everything normalized and I saw the importance and applicability of what my first boss had told me years ago.

Sales Tips That Dig Deeper
Remember the wise and articulate sales training instructor I wrote about in my first post in this series?  Recall how he quietly stood in front of our new hire class and wrote these words on the whiteboard:

1. Spiritual
2. Family/Friends
3. Work

Over time, I have seen how events, both good and bad, regarding family and friends can affect people (e.g., divorce/marriage, death/birth, illness/health, separation/union). I understand why family and friends made the number two spot on his list. Our family and friends provide an immediate support system for us. Take that away from someone, or damage it significantly, and every part of that person’s life will be affected. Make it strong, and the individual will be fortified and buttressed in every area of their life.

Know what a camera tripod is?  Our family and friends are one of the legs.  Remove this leg and the camera will crash to the ground.

Sales Blog Epilogue
My many years since then have taught me that point two of what this instructor said was right on target regarding the importance of family and friends to our sales career.  I want to  apologize to my first boss for acting like such a know-it-all.  I also want to thank him for planting a seed of wisdom that I have never stopped using.  I now understand that our family and friends are critical to effectively navigating through the turbulence of our life and sales career.  They’re inseparable.

In part three in my sales blog series, I’ll introduce you to how our sales career is impacted by how we view work.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

Related posts:

1. Life’s 3 Priorities, Part 1 of 3
2. Life’s 3 Priorities, Part 3 of 3
3. The 10 Steps Of A Sales Professional’s Employment Life Cycle

Tags: career, salespeople

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