"He's Just the Sales Guy"

The father was quite dismissive. And this is after more than an hour of conversation concerning the student's situation, peppered with specifics of what classes to take, what extracurricular activities to undertake, and how to prioritize many tasks related to applying to overseas universities. While it is never certain what others mean when they say certain things, my approaching the conversation as an advisor of university admission matters and overall time management needs certainly did not leave as strong of an impression as the fact that I am ultimately attempting to sell something.

Such a reaction can be disheartening for someone attempting to establish credibility based on past experiences and existing knowledge of the education industry. Salespeople rely on techniques, soft persuasion skills, and influence that change minds and contribute to favorable actions. But consultants ideally rely on the knowledge, the hard facts that provide rational evidence as to why studying abroad should be considered in the first place. The two are different sets of skills, each being just as important as the other, but mutually exclusive.

Yet, the negative reaction of being called a salesperson also reflects negative perceptions of a salesperson that is deeply tied to the role's large image within society at large. Daniel Pink's To Sell is Human, which I finished not long ago, refers to a survey that gauges public impression of the word "salespeople." The majority of responses had negative connotations, relating to the supposed conniving nature of people who persuade others to buy something. Getting people to part with their money always seems a seedy role, the survey results say, that is based on deception, exaggeration, and undelivered promises.

Unfortunately, vain attempts at mitigating that negative image of sales often do not tackle that negative impression but try to create distance with it. To hide our ultimate attempts to get people to buy until the last moment, we cloak ourselves in the appearance of unparalleled knowledge of the subject matter. The result is often counterproductive. Attempts to be experts at providing information lead to time spent providing knowledge to people who are just trying to get it for free, rather than envisioning solutions that need to be paid for.

Moreover, as Pink stated so eloquently, in the age of technology (Google in the olden days, GPT in the days ahead), a layperson can acquire accessible knowledge, like in the case of university admissions, just as quickly as a veteran of the field. If the information is out there for all to see, and plenty of opinions, including those expressed in this blog, are easily searchable, then machines can quickly gather and summarize the information, and then propagate it at a fraction of the time and labor cost of human beings. Creating distance through knowledge will no longer work. 

As such, rather than running away or hiding from sales, salespeople will need to increasingly take pride in sales being their job. And there is much to be proud of. As automation and AI rapidly make factory workers, researchers, writers, and even programmers less valuable, one of the more secure jobs that remain is one that primarily focuses on speaking to others. It is not that AI cannot give better answers than humans in conversations. Rather, people may continue to prefer speaking to other people, not because people are more knowledgeable than AI, but because they want emotional solace that machines cannot offer.

Ironic as it seems, a salesperson, one of the most ancient professions in human history, may also be a job of the future that is largely immune from waves of technological development. As long as humans want to speak to and interact with other humans, people will prefer their salespeople to be other humans. Public opposition to continuing lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic has largely shown that, even in the age of e-commerce and online forms of entertainment, people want to see other people before deciding to buy various products and services.

Thought this way, "he's just a sales guy" can also be interpreted positively. The father may have meant it dismissively but in terms of the changing demand for employment in a technologically advanced world, those who sell are perhaps in a good position to whether structural changes in the labor market. As disparaging as the general perception of sales may be today, salespeople should own their positions with a greater sense of pride and feel less of a need to hide behind their supposed (and quickly eroding) sense of superior knowledge in any subject matter.