You've decided to make a go of it and blaze your own trail into the
media forest. You're ready to become one who disseminates the
information. You spend a year or so learning the ins and outs of the
business, maybe as an editorial assistant, a marketing assistant, a
production assistant, or just plain assisting. But there's always an
eye solidly looking forward to the day when you're whisked around the
city in a town car, lunching with celebrities and prospective editorial
talent, turning jobs away because "$1,000,000 just ain't gonna cut it."
Then, one day, your landlord says he's got a gaggle of diplomat's children ready to pay $2000.00 more per month for your studio apartment with the shower in the kitchen (where you normally store pots and pantry items for lack of anywhere else to put them). Inconsolable, you take a $20 cab ride to go and drown your sorrows in $7 pints of beer while burning through an $8 deck of Marlboro Lights. The next day, when your boss responds to your request for a raise with a little giggle and pat on the head, you head to HR, and see if there are any jobs available in... sales?
You feel dirty, maybe even a little nauseated. You've just inked your name on the devil's dance card. You're cold, ice cold, but you're also pragmatic. Sure, sales guys have been tagged as the slimy suits who write off Brylcreem and own reversible slacks, but they also seem to have homes. That they own. Some are even fairly okay folks. They're not all about fast ones and sleights of hand. Maybe you can really make a go of this -- burn a whole different path into the sales game -- but how do you do it?
There is a multi-billion dollar business that envelops sales training -- some of it useful, much of it, redundant at best, and patently misguided at worst. To say that all sales-related manuals and seminars are useless is both incorrect and unfair, but jumping into a sea of sales advice without knowing anything about how the game works helps no one. You were practical in your decision to get into sales, so be equally practical in your approach to learning about it.
For those seeking some simple words of wisdom, here you go:
1) Don't sell steaks to a vegan. (In other words, make sure your potential customer has use for your wares.)
2) Don't be a jerk.
3) Ask more questions then you normally would in the course of a
conversation. (However, steer clear of politics, religion, prurient
subject matter -- yes, that includes the latest Paris Hilton snippet on
YouTube -- and any obvious physical afflictions.)
4) Know your product at least as well as the buyer.
5) If you don't know the answer to something, say "I don't know, but I can certainly find out."
6) If you suck at all of the above, quit and go join the Army (I'm fairly sure they're hiring.)
Let's be as objective as we can: There is no Nobel Prize for sales, and no one's won a MacArthur genius grant for landing a deep-pocketed advertiser. We don't spend our days peering through microscopes to cure disease. We don't sit across the table from banana republic dictators trying to convince them that slaughtering citizens isn't the strongest way to gain most favored trading status. We sell. We sell intangible goods and services. We sell eyeballs. We sell "sticky." But most importantly, we sell ourselves.
| This job is not for everyone. You'll be involved in so much glad-handing that you'll pray for leprosy, and there's no byline for getting tanked with vendors at a trade show. |
When you pay a visit to the media buyer for a small to mid-size company with a half-million dollar ad budget, you're sitting with someone who has enough responsibility to help you make quota, but you can't expect them to redirect your career. Don't get too worked up. You're not about to choose between snipping the blue wire or the red wire. Sit back, relax, and have a nice chat.
To be clear, this job is not for everyone. You'll likely be involved in so much glad-handing that you'll pray for leprosy, and there's no byline attached to getting tanked with vendors in town for a trade show. But, as you move along, best case scenario is that you learn through doing saleswhat makes media tick. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, the media biz doesn't glide around on a cloud of integrity -- rather, it speeds along a patched-together ramp made from equal parts hope and speculation. Despite what you've heard, read, or even seen, working in sales isn't all lies and distractions, nor is it a three-way contest where the third prize is a pink slip. It's a good way to make a solid living, learn about a business you've always wanted to be in, and occasionally, even get a satisfying opportunity to be creative.
Like, say, if you get to babble about all your experiences in an anonymous column.
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