Selling Is Purposeful Work

As we know, people commonly avoid sales. Sadly, the entrepreneurs themselves are the best ones to avoid it. It is easy to hire someone else to do the “dirty work”, even though selling, especially in the beginning, is the most important task of an entrepreneur.

Selling is purposeful work in many ways. It is vital for the survival of a company and it is the most common bottleneck in any business. It is the number one reason why businesses succeed or fail. Secondly, without successful sales, the mission of a company doesn’t come true. Without sales, the solution a company offers doesn’t reach the market i.e. it doesn’t have an effect of any kind. No matter how meaningful the company’s mission is, it will be wasted and useless unless it is sold. Thirdly, well and ethically conducted sales work is a valuable customer service act.

Sales people should be the most respected people in any organization. They literally make the money to pay everybody else’s salaries. Realizing this, it would also be very important for everyone in any organization to adopt the role of a sales person. Every act is a sales and marketing act. Everyone should bear his or her responsibility in advancing sales.

Several entrepreneur friends of mine struggle with their sales. Most resources are put into developing trendy internet marketing and blogs rather than on picking up the phone, booking meetings and making sales. If sales is left only to marketing, the business is kind of left in the hands of “a greater power.” Marketing should be seen as a way to create a fruitful contact basis for sales. In most cases it does not replace sales, but supports it.

A more courageous sales attitude should be adopted among our start-ups as well. In general, it would be good for at least the Finnish start-up entrepreneurs to start meeting and contacting customers at a more early stage and remarkably more actively. Financing might surprisingly often be available also from cash flow. Sales is a dear topic for us both at Nordic Business Forum Oy as well as at Boardman 2020. We do our best to make it an attractive topic in organizations. We wish this magazine will do its part in encouraging its readers to adopt a better attitude towards it.

Hans-Peter Siefen
CEO, Nordic Business Forum Oy
Member of the board, Boardman 2020
Editor in chief, Nordic Business Report

This article is from the August 2013 issue of Nordic Business Report. Read the full magazine here »