Was the Easter Sermon About Salespeople?

Well was the sermon about salespeople?

No, of course it wasn’t.  But it sure as heck could have been.  And although I’m beginning by referencing the sermon, this is not an article about Religion.

The Priest was talking about Catholics who attend church only on Christmas and Easter. He was pleased to see a full house at all of the Easter masses and that those of us in attendance should urge our friends and family members to come to church.  From personal experience, it isn’t all that different from when I was younger and Jewish.  Back then I attended Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services – the two holiest days of the year – but rarely showed up for Friday night or Saturday morning Sabbath services.

The Priest said that with the divisive political views, we need church and prayer more than ever and I couldn’t agree more.  He could have added war, crime, violence, hate, the border, and squatting to his list.

Whether it’s Catholics who the Priest referred to, Jews that I referenced, various other Christian denominations, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and more, we are all members of a group – a congregation, and a religion.  Some take this membership very seriously.  Some take their beliefs very seriously.  Some take both very seriously.  Some believe that versus believe in.  Others are members who don’t attend at all.  Others simply aren’t members.

I don’t want to be dismissive of the true meaning of Easter but at the same time, is anything I wrote above applicable to salespeople?

As someone who for thirty-eight years has led a global sales consultancy specializing in sales, sales management and sales leadership training, I can use the same words to describe people “who belong” to the sales profession.  They should be attending weekly training.  They should be practicing their profession as we practice our faith.  They should be reading about sales.  But most in the sales profession are content to sit on the sidelines, do the least they can get away with, and attend training only when the company forces them to.  This at a time when we are seeing:

• Companies hesitating to spend money
• Competition is becoming fierce
• Projects are being back-burnered or abandoned
• Procurement is becoming more difficult to deal with
• Decision-makers are more protected and harder to meet
• Phone calls go unanswered
• Voicemails are not returned
• Emails and LinkedIn messages are deleted before they are read
• RFPs are gaining in prominence
• Prospects don’t believe they need salespeople because they can find everything they need to know online

If current socio-economic conditions should bring people together in prayer, then selling conditions should bring sales professionals together for training.

We can pray on our own without going to church or temple and we can practice on our own without attending sales training.  But when we come together, as members of the same religion, group, tribe or profession, there is more power, comfort, confidence, enjoyment, togetherness, camaraderie, joy, commitment, positivity, and relief.  It’s good for us!

The Sunday morning news show we watch usually ends with one of the co-hosts saying, “Go to church!”

I’ll end with this: Use the training you enrolled in. If you haven’t enrolled, don’t wait for your company to offer something. Take it seriously and enroll today by clicking here.  And it doesn’t have to be Baseline Selling training.  If you’re familiar with, comfortable with, have been exposed to or like some other training than Baseline Selling, then enroll in that.  But, in the spirit of the Easter message, please enroll in something!

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