My dad shares a story about how one of his former colleagues, the General Manager of a large industrial business, had a phrase on his office wall that said, “Nothing happens until somebody sells something.”
This is true. In business, selling something triggers all the resulting downstream actions. No need for operations meetings, organizational charts, job descriptions, operational infrastructure, and more revenue supporting activities, until there’s a sale. Selling implies the creation of some tangible good or service that has value to the buyer. No sale, no sustainable business. It’s so easy as a business grows, to focus more and more on internal matters. That’s the space where I hire staff, since as a firm grows, the doer-seller model needs a larger and larger support team, including distribution of client relationship management and operations.
My experience (and that of many I have polled and talked to) has been this; for everyone twenty people that can “do” there’s one or two that can “sell.” Sales is the rarer skill. If there’s a choice between selling and doing, pick selling. Own the relationships. Support the brand and the value. Stay connected to the client, the market, the messages outside the business.
Who sold something today?
JOHN L WHEATON BLOG 