Saturday I was entertaining a CEO and Vice-President of an up and coming already National Company. As the evening progressed the subject of the blog came up and I was explaining that Sunday I dedicate to ethics and morals. The Vice President of this Company asked me if I thought there was a place for that in sales? I didn’t know whether he was being serious or not, so I just answered him without hesitation and a resounding YES. I breathed a lot easier when he stated that he was in full agreement. I didn’t want to think I had misjudged this very fine executive. Turns out I didn’t, so all was well.

The very next morning I was having a discussion with an elite sales person that went on to explain to me that all sales was manipulation of words and people. I was shocked. I will never convince that person, but I will share my belief with all of you. The sales profession is what you make of it. It is where your heart is. If you think you are manipulating words and people, who am I to tell you that you aren’t.

“The Specialist” long ago, in the early years of his career, came to terms with the decision to manipulate words and people or to motivate them. See, the difference is that a manipulator is doing it for personal gain only. Someone that motivates a buyer is not only looking out for himself but definitely for the folks! Maybe that is why most of my life I have been a teacher of sales because I feel the need to tell the young salespeople of this next generation that they have a choice of how they want to be perceived and how they want more importantly to perceive themselves. It is all in your heart. I can spot a manipulator a mile away. Everything they do has an agenda.

Someone like myself certainly has the ability to manipulate people but I have spent literally hundreds of thousands of hours training people both for sales and management mixed with life lessons knowing full well that If only one thing I say to them may change the course of their life.

To all you sales/professionals who consider yourselves master manipulators, I say in closing give back to the industryY and you will feel completely different.

“The Specialist”