What Are You Selling?

I used to work for a property management company.  I leased apartments to suckers.  It was a sales job and I effen hated it.  I used to run home in tears from the monotony of pushing some serious units.  Now usually, I’m not a quitter (Read: I am a quitter with a huge, meaty vagina), but in this case, I wanted out.  However, I was afraid to quit, and I didn’t know how to tell the management I needed something else.  Fortunately for me and my lady parts (see about engorged vag above), the company decided to sell the property.  I felt it was the best time to get out without giving a two week notice or telling anyone that I was unhappy, thus saving myself the trouble of embarrassment.  It was through this experience that I learned something about sales that I would like to share with you today.  Through leasing these sh*tty apartments, I learned that for the most part, two things are true: 1.) Sales are apart of every job, and 2.) Unless you sell something that you really love, you are going to loathe it.  To combat this you need to love yourself and sell a product that everyone wants: you. 

Take a moment and consider every job you can think of.  Time!  What d’ya come up with?  At some point in all of those positions, you are going to be selling either a product, an idea, or yourself.  Businessmen sell ideas and products to investors and clients.  Teachers sell drugs to kids.  Hookers sell their bodies to businessmen for drugs.  And even if a job doesn’t directly entail some salesmanship, when you apply for that job, you are still selling your skill set to the employer.  You are a product of a material world.  Luckily it pays cash.  Cold, hard cash.  You have to be a provider, right?  If you don’t provide for yourself, you’re going to die sooner rather than later.  Remember all of those trinkets/candy bars/books/carpet samples you sold as a kid?  The system was priming you for the dog eat dog arena known as life.  Now rather than fight this reality (something I tried and it made me really angry; remember my tears?), you’ll need to embrace it.

Once you accept that you have to participate in a competitive world (which is something you have little choice over), then your survival depends on selling something you love.  For some folks, it’s the love selling sh*tty apartments.  For some, it’s selling their bodies.  For everyone, it’s selling yourself.  This is a task that takes a great amount of energy and self love.  (I have to point out it’s not the kind of self love that 5 minutes alone at the computer in an empty house with a bottle of Jergen’s and box of Kleenex can provide.)  You have to really like yourself.  If you don’t love what you’re selling, you’re going to hate the job.  If you hate what you’re selling and you are the product, you are going to hate yourself.  When you hate yourself or your image or your skill set, your buyers are going to recognize that and reject you.  If you are rejected by someone else, you’ll feel even worse about yourself.   The truth is, no matter how much you love yourself, you’re going to be rejected…a lot.  With the aide of self love, however, coming back from rejection is easier to do.

The cruel reality of this is that the world you live in is unjust and unfair.  Somewhere down the road, the key to your chance at personal success is held by another person.  Did you read that?  Your success is controlled by someone else!  That sucks big, old, hairy gorilla balls!  To be happy you can do and act and say whatever you want but you cannot control what other people think of you or how they react to you.  You do have the ability to control your attitude, however.  Your ability to sell yourself as a confident and hungry person is paramount to your personal success and happiness.  If other people aren’t buying it, they can eat a bag of d*cks.  There are many opportunities out there because people are always buying and it’s not hard to find them.  Buyers will buy you because they like you for who you are so long as you like you for who you are.

Sales is a brutal business and is impossible to escape.  If you’re not selling the filth you are absolutely passionate about, you are SOL my friend.  Your happiness and self satisfaction depends on it.  Your ability to sell yourself is one based out of the love that you have for yourself.  You’re ego is going to be beaten and bruised along the way, but remembering what is really important to you will keep you on your horse.  If you can’t manage to do that, you might as well pull the trigger now and save yourself the trouble.