Get Your Degree in Sales Skills!

I was reading a very interesting business book this week, and it made a very good point - one that you probably already know:

Selling is the most important skill in all of business!

And yet, most college students and even business executives shun sales. They've had so many bad experiences with salespeople that they avoid the topic entirely, and somehow feel that they're "above" it, or too good for it.

Why are selling skills so important?

The answer is easy, and the author of the book put it very simply:

If you can sell, you can get a job, anywhere, anytime!

I'd take it a step further - if you can sell, you can make a steady and prosperous income, anywhere, anytime, and in any business.

Which leads me to wonder....

So many people get degrees in different areas of business - marketing degrees, advertising degrees, MBAs, and so on, but no college or university offers a degree in salesmanship...

...even though salesmanship is the single most important element to success in business!

And it doesn't stop there. The reason Napoleon Hill called his sales book "How To Sell Your Way Through Life" is very simple: Sales is a skill that helps you in ALL areas of life. Whether it's selling your kids on listening to you, or maintaining a happy and harmonious marriage, or selling your ideas for neighborhood improvement to your local city councilperson, sales skills are essential for success, no matter what your definition of success may be. (And the greatest successes aren't about money alone.)

How Good Are YOUR Selling Skills?

You may not have a degree in salesmanship, but are you truly a top sales pro? Someone who can get sales without any of the usual sales puke, or tricky closes, or "Steps of a sale," or any of that nonsense?

Or are you still using all of those 1980s sales techniques that most sales "experts" and authors continue to teach to this day, even though they stopped working with the dawn of the Internet age?

The Saddest Salesperson Ever

The saddest type of salesperson of all is the one who does have superb selling skills - some people are even born "naturals" at selling - but who have no one to sell to.

Instead of spending their time face-to-face with qualified prospects who are ready to buy, they spend the bulk of their time searching for someone to sell to. I know, because I used to be one of those salespeople. I was excellent at closing sales, but spent far too much time searching for someone to sell to.

That all ended when the best sales manager I've ever had pulled me aside one day, and told me, "Frank, you're too talented to do the job of a minimum-wage telemarketer. We don't cold call around here." And thus began the period of learning that helped me to develop dozens of ways to generate hot leads without cold calling, an education that has never ended - and has never stopped growing my sales and those of my clients - as the power and reach of modern technology and the Internet continues to grow at astonishing rates. 

New York Times best-selling author Frank Rumbauskas is the author of the Never Cold Call Again® System and has won numerous accolades, such as Readers Choice for Business Book of the Year from 800-CEO-READ, and has been named one of Fast Company’s top 30 most influential people online. To learn more, and to download a free 37-page PDF preview of his Never Cold Call Again lead-generation system, visit NeverColdCall.com #SalesStrategies