I stated at the beginning of this year that sales jobs would be the place to be during this major economic contraction and recently Forbes looked to the online job site Vault.com for a clear snapshot of the current job market. Vault.com developed a list of recession-proof jobs by examining all the 1.2 million jobs it aggregates through its partner site simplyhired.com and then determining the ones that were available in the greatest number.   Sales jobs represent 4 of the top 7 most recession-proof jobs.

Unemployment rates continued to rise currently to the highest level since 1983. The already bad news is getting worse, the question is what do you do about it. The way to counter the gloom and doom is always to ask yourself a good question. If you are out of work it would be- what jobs do companies have to have?  

<p>Let’s establish that retailing is based on shopping for and serving to, not selling.</p>
<p>Use yourself as an example. Assume regarding the last time you went into a retail store. You clearly went there on a mission to shop for something. So what happened? Did you buy?</p>
<p>Did you purchase as a result of of the salesperson or did you buy regardless of the salesperson? Was it a great experience that you just talked about to alternative individuals? Was it a dangerous experience that you mentioned to other people?</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter what you visited buy. It does not matter whether or not it absolutely was a combine of shoes, a replacement monitor for your computer, a hamburger, or a try of jeans. You went into the shop, wanting or wanting to buy. Once you walk through the door, you enter a wierd land. Someone approaches you and tries to sell you something.</p>
<p>Their gap comment is generally something inane like, &quot;Are you having a sensible day? &quot; or &quot; Can I help you?&quot; They are unwell trained and pathetic. After all you are trying and avoid them. You are trying and stop their gabbling by saying, &quot;Simply looking&quot; as you progress briskly aloof from them hoping that they do not follow you.</p>
<p>It is a crazy scenario, the salesperson wants to sell you and you would like to be left alone unless you see something you wish to shop for or you have got set your sights on a specific product</p>
<p>The retail sale can an excellent example of a variety of successful activities. It’s where successful advertising, successful branding, successful word-of-mouth promotion and your specific wants all meet. Regrettably, everything works until that moment of truth when you’re confronted with the salesperson. Once you walk through the threshold of the store, the general expertise determines the future of the business.</p>

Special Report: Increase Your Sales Revenue

The situations I have found have reinforced my experience that to out-perform the competition in a highly contested market the whole organisation must be sales enabled. At the Breakfast I outlined 5 Imperatives that must be implemented so that the organisation is a finely tuned sales machine. So that you can build them into your go to market for this financial year, here they are:

1. Translate the Vision, Mission, Values and Strategy into SALES tools for everyoneOnly rarely do the staff in organisations know what the Vision is for their company. Often the Mission that they are expected to implement toward the Vision is not clear. The Values are not overtly stated relying on hearsay or an attitude of osmosis: ‘just work out for yourself the way we do things around here’. The usual practice is that the Strategy that the organisation is using to underpin the Mission is a tightly held secret by senior management for fear that it may ‘leak out’. The leaders of such companies are missing out on deploying a powerful sales tool. It is important for the staff to understand that the only reason a company exists is to provide a return to the owners. If the owners were not prepared to invest in satisfying a market need, there would not be a company and hence there would be no jobs. They should ensure that everyone in the organisation is fully aware of what the Vision, Mission, Values and Strategy are and what their role is to ensure they are delivered. Staff that truly understand these don’t just ‘have a job’, they have a purpose to be there. On the one hand they will understand what the company does to provide a profitable output and on the other hand the value that it provides to the end customers so that they will pay the appropriate price. Let’s look at an example. If a person arrives every day to ‘fill boxes and send them out’ at a pharmaceutical company without any knowledge of where their function fits into the ‘big picture’ they may consider it a boring task. If they understand that the products they are packing and shipping are in line with the organisation’s Vision of “Providing a better life for the elderly in the community through abolishing their pain” they can now understand that their daily actions are crucial to helping elderly people who are suffering. They are no longer ‘packaging pills’; they are ‘shipping relief’. When a particular sales person at this company is working on closing more business with a wholesaler and needs to find out if a shipment has been sent or is being processed, the stores people will have a far more proactive approach to assisting when they know that by actively assisting the sales effort they are contributing to the company’s efforts to provide a highly valuable service to the end customer. The sales person is able to focus on making the next sale, not on doing battle internally with staff that think they are ‘an annoying sales person’ who is only worried about making a sale.

2. Embed SALES into the Culture across the organizationEvery function of the Sales Enabled Organisation adopts sales (note the small ‘s’) as part of its culture, or ‘the reason we do things around here’. Once everyone understands the purpose of the company by understanding the Vision, Mission, Values and Strategy the leaders can work to ensure that sales is part of the Culture across the company. The Culture relies on what is held in high esteem in that organisation. It is defined by what the leaders pay attention to, what they reward and what they punish. To enable a Sales Culture, the staff must have a holistic view of the company, what it stands for, the value of its output to the customers and why the sales process is imperative for the company’s survival and hence their job security. The leaders share the sales approach with everyone and educate them on how every role fits into the overall approach to the customer and sales to them. They recognise, praise and reward efforts in all areas that contribute toward positive sales results. They actively assist functions that are having difficulties that negatively impact sales success. Where there is any negative attitude toward the sales effort or counter-productive behaviour, they are quick to act and address the situation decisively. In this environment, the Culture becomes “What can I do to assist sales” as opposed to “Don’t bother me, I’m not in sales”.