For the majority of my career I have worked in operations. Many roles were of a customer focus and eventually graduated in to service supervision and ultimately in to general operational management. This operational progression culminated in an executive role as Vice President of Operations. As one can imagine throughout this litany of roles my knowledge of process design, systems functionality, user experience etc. was honed to a fine edge as was my disdain for sales.
A ubiquitous reality in business is the contention between ops and sales. Much like the experience of young soldiers when they arrive in boot camp to find out that everything their recruiter told them was horse pucky. “Sure the base has a swimming pool!” translates to “You will tread water for twenty minutes while holding this brick above your head.”
Inevitably operations personnel will encounter similar experiences where the client says “Bob said that your tool will cook me dinner and bath the kids” and the newly appointed ops bad guy must say “ma’am I understand but our tool provides medical transcription”, you see where that can go.
For several years I was prodded to move in to a sales position because of my perspective on operations and that prospect froze my blood. I could never sell. I wasn’t cheesy like that.
Well in 2008 the band aid was ripped cleanly off and I moved in to a dedicated sales role. I found something on the other side of the fence that I truly did not anticipate. The grass was just as green.
As is true in most realities there are two sides. On the sales side instead of feeling as though we have over committed to a point that delivery was not possible I noticed that just as often operations missed basic deliverables that impacted customers. Suddenly what was a perfectly galvanized universe where sales were wrong and ops were right became a muddy, multifaceted reality where every case must be investigated.
What was also surprising to me as I recovered from my operations condition was that selling is actually easier when you come from operations. I found myself becoming the SME in the sales process, the go to person for complex solutions. My operations bend coupled with my passion for the business quickly defined a style that has lead to significant success in the sales arena, all while preserving a healthy respect for the back of the house.
It really is possible to be confident without being cocky, to be passionate without being pushy and most importantly to sell without being cheesy.
Now when I hear talented operators say “I could never sell” or qualify themselves in conversation by saying “I am not in sales” I jump up and tell them that they are missing the boat. The very fact that they are ops experts who loath the stereo type of sales will make them powerful solutions sellers. I strongly encourage the operators of the world to buck up and go on sales calls, you will find green pastures on the other side of the fence (and by green I do mean grass but I also mean money!).
Non-Entropic Musings 