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Editor's Letter: Talking Shop with an Old Competitor
May 06, 2008
By Michael McCue
During a recent Webinar presentation, I talked a bit about my pre-college years and why I had no intention of making a career in sales, which is what I thought you did if you weren't going to college. At the time, I thought I was taking my first steps toward a distinguished career as a psychiatrist, or possibly a novelist. (Ah, the best-laid plans of mice and men …)
In fact, my parents went so far as to caution me about the life-draining role many salesmen had to perform: The Guy with the Expense Account. He would roll into town every six months or so, take people out to dinner and stay out late buying everyone drinks. Everyone loved when that guy came to town because he was the life of the party.
While that might sound like a pretty good job to an 18-year-old, my dad warned me about how fast these men burned out and how hard it was for them to maintain a normal family life. Young men would eagerly rush off to start their new jobs as salesmen, but when my Dad ran into them a few years later, he said it looked like they'd aged decades rather than a few scant seasons.
Obviously, given my role on this publication, I've changed my tune quite a bit; I now have a healthy appreciation for salespeople and the work they do. However, my mini-epiphany didn't occur when I became editor-in-chief of Sales & Marketing Management, but rather during my previous role as the director of marketing for a healthcare IT company. As fate would have it, one of our fiercest competitors was EDS, whose chief sales officer, Bobby Grisham, is on the cover of this issue.
Although EDS is many times larger than the company I worked for (which no longer exists, having been gobbled up by larger competitors), and despite the fact that we only competed with EDS in a single market, many of the things Bobby said during our discussion reminded me of those days: extra-long sales cycles, IT solutions that affected every aspect of the customer's business operations, multiple face-to-face meetings with CEOs of national health plans ... the process was a far cry from the glad-handing and arm-twisting I thought salesmen needed to do to be succesful!
I realized then that modern salespeople aren't the life of the party. They're the solvers of problems, and they're valued for their knowledge and insight, not their corporate credit card. Suddenly, sales sounded like a pretty good way to make a living. And who knows? Had I known then what I know now, maybe my picture would be on the cover of this magazine, rather than here on page 5!
Sales & Marketing Management Magazine
This article is brought to you by Sales & Marketing Management, the leading authority for executives in the sales and marketing field.
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