(The Am I a Sales Person? quiz)
Some folks are horrified by the thought they will be placed in a sales role. Some folks are horrified to have the word sales on their business card. Some folks are horrified to have the word sales at the top or in the body of their role description. “What! I have to show people I am a salesperson – what a stigma…what an embarrassment!”
The energy sector got around the problem by calling its commercial folks ‘originators’. [That sure cleared things up.]
Other folks argue everyone does sales. “You wanna talk your kids into doing this or that – well, that’s sales.” Or, “You and your spouse disagree about your next vacation spot – well, that’s gonna require some sales too!”
Gitomer says something like, “People hate to be sold, but people love to buy”. And, he has written many sales-help books, including a Sales Bible.
Anyhow, the debate - to sell or not to sell - rages on.
Regardless of all the stress and strain around being called a salesperson or the logic around selling versus enabling people to buy, the root question remains – Am I a salesperson?
If that is your question then you will want to answer it!
You will want to know whether or not you are a salesperson.
But, how will you know for sure?
Here’s a way to start: you can take ‘The Am I a Sales Person? quiz’:
It goes like this…
The Am I a Sales Person? quiz
The perfect scores are 0 and 100…ie, extreme scores, one at each end of the spectrum. 100 means you really are a salesperson. 0 means you really are not a salesperson. [So, if you score below 0 you must round up to 0. If you score over 100 you must round down to 100.]
- Start by giving yourself 50 points. That proves you have an open mind on the topic. No matter what outcome, you will have the comfort of knowing the quiz started at even keel.
- If you are still reading this Thought Post then add 20 points.
- If that last line was the final straw and you have now quit reading then subtract 40 points.
- Check your calendar – from today forward, how many hours are booked as sales calls? If there are less than 6 hours then you could be a salesperson. On the other hand, you could be a troubled sales manager. Use your judgment on this one: either add or subtract 15 points.
- Do you have a goal to generate Profit for your organization? If you answer ‘absolutely, and I know those numbers’ add 50 points. If you answer ‘I think my boss mentioned something like that once’ subtract 25 points. If you aren’t sure then stop taking this test and either find such a goal or agree to a score of 0.
- Do you wish you had closed a sale last week? If your answer is ‘sort of’ then add 10 points and buy a motivational CD. If your answer is ‘no’ then add 25 points and take a day off next week. If your answer is ‘yes – very much so’ then subtract 25 points and buy a how-to-sell CD.
- Check your calendar again – if you have less than 6 sales meetings booked and you have tremendously skilled support folks who do that sort of detail work to keep you on track then add 35 points.
- When you see those front-door signs that say something like ‘No Solicitation’ do you wish you had a new job…if your answer is even close to ‘yes’ then subtract 75 points.
- If you have decided to ignore the limitation of a maximum score of 100 for this quiz and insist you scored more than 100 then give yourself another 25 bonus points.
- Do you read and retweet @WFCRickBaker ‘Daily Sales Tweets’ to business friends? Score as many points as you want…I appreciate having you as a follower on Twitter.