The Image of Selling Needs a Facelift

When I was a teenager I remember being heavily influenced by John Grisham’s novels and movies. Grisham had taken the legal drama and elevated it to new heights. His books are international best sellers and his movies made millions. I know this was one of the primary reasons I wanted to be a lawyer when I was 18.

As one of the comments by a reader of this blog pointed out, ‘if you ask 18 year olds what they think about selling they will likely tell you something negative.” Why is this? At 18 I doubt they have had some overtly negative experience with a sales person to shape their outlook. I would guess it is the lack of information presented to them at 18. If there is a void in positive information then all it takes is one piece of negative information to cast a long shadow over selling in general.

In real life if you visit a court room or meet with a lawyer and find out what makes up most of the daily activities you’d find it pretty boring. According to a Grisham book your life would be filled with high energy drama from start to finish and you would end up being a hero. Who doesn’t want that? High School students are impressionable and these movies help draw their attention and shape what they want to study in University. It is no wonder that law, business and medicine are popular courses in all level of post-secondary education.

Hollywood has a way of making almost anything seem exciting.

Jerry McGuire starring Tom Cruise had one of the most famous lines in recent memory, “Show me the money” Tom Cruise played a sports agent that resigned from a position at a top sports management agency and lost all of his clients but one. Cruises character was forced to propel his one remaining client into the spot light.

Sales, and the profession of selling, badly need to give itself a facelift and inject some more positive images of sales in popular culture. Even movies that feature sales people in the story lines due it in a subtle way.

There is nothing subtle about “Wall Street” released in 1987 featuring Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas. The message is clear it is cool to be a trader on Wall Street. Follow up movies to ‘Wall Street’ such as; ‘Boiler Room’ released in 2000 staring Giovanni Ribisi and Vin Diesel or ‘Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps’ released in 2010 again starring Michael Douglas have carried on the message.

During the 90’s the medical show ‘ER’ starring the now ultra-famous George Clooney led the way in creating a very positive; high drama image of the medical profession. Following the show ER came the highly popular medical drama ‘House’ starring Huge Laurie as a colourful diagnostic genius Doctor.

I am not saying that everyone that sees a movie about investing, law or medicine pursues a career in those fields, but it does help their popularity. Find the right career is a long path however the journey starts with a positive image or feeling about the job.

It is no wonder that professions that appear in many best-selling Hollywood movies and TV shows receive the most demand from students to study them at College or University.

In my experience I have met lots of great men and women in sales. Most of the people I have met have been quite successful when you compare against national income averages. Selling needs to leverage these great men and women to spread the word about just how good a career in selling can be.

This blog is an effort by me to inspire current sales people and potential sales people to decide to excel at selling. I challenge everyone that reads this post to use social media to spread the positive word about selling. Remember, when there is a void of information, it is easiest to provide a negative point of view.

Use all social media outlets to encourage people to choose selling and we will slowly see the current negative paradigm of the image of selling change.

The ultimate goal will be to create a very positive image of selling that High School and University students will see and then attract them to want a career in selling. This will eventually force educational institutions to develop sales specific programs.

Happy Holidays!