What I have found so unbelievable is the amount of experienced salespersons out of work. I ran a test recently and actually put an ad in the newspaper for salesperson. What an experience. Almost everyone that came in proceeded to tell me of their fantastic feats of accomplishments. It was truly amazing to listen to. I will just give you a brief sampling before I highlight a few points.

I heard everything from “I was the greatest that ever lived and my boss was jealous of my success” , “I have been selling for 15 years and I have sold everything”, “I had to leave because my boss was hitting on me”, “I didn’t like my manager”, “the training was no good” to “too many hours”…and the list goes on.

The problem was all of these people had two or three common denominators. First and most obvious, THEY WERE UNEMPLOYED! Why? Well, some of the many excuses I heard had merit, while others were ridiculous.

I have been in sales/management 40 years now and I have only filled out one application…the one for my first sales job! If you are so damn good why are you out of work? My boss is jealous of my success…give me a break! You mean you didn’t know how to incorporate your boss into your great success! I’ve sold EVERYTHING…We all know this one…a Jack of ALL trades and good at NONE!

Another common denominator that I found was only one of these people took any ownership that some of it might have been their fault! It was amazing! Not only that, not one of these people were trainable! They were all set in their ways. Now, some of them gave tremendous lip service, but when the rubber met the road they couldn’t begin to take on new ideas or even learn to correct the things that flawed their last job performance.

I did meet one gentleman, however, that did have sales experience and was the only one in all of the interviews that relished the thought of being mentored by someone that had more experience then himself. For this person I say “The Specialist” will GUARANTEE your success! I will put MY name and reputation on it! For all you other experienced, unemployed sales persons, a word to the wise. When you are applying for a position, if you want to be taken seriously don’t sell all your accomplishments to the point you look silly being unemployed. Let your hopefully new employer know right up front you ARE WILLING TO LEARN! Remember he has a job, YOU Don’t! I guarantee you will be pleasantly surprised with your results and you won’t be looking for a new job anytime soon.

“The Specialist”