I got a call on a Sunday afternoon last week. It was from my old university. The person who was calling was young and had a thick accent I could barely understand. Because she was calling from my university and it’s been a few decades since I had anything to do with them, I knew immediately why they were calling. They wanted me to donate my money.

Just Minding My Business

My immediate thought was ‘poor girl’. She was doing her best to carry on a laughing conversation in her broken English and to check if my address was still current. I was brief and tried to be patient with her. Then I thought I’d speed things along and ask her how I could help. God bless her, she got right down to it and asked ‘would you be interested in donating to the university as you’re one of our alumni?’. There I was, minding my own business on a sleepy Sunday and I found myself giving a full explanation to this stranger about why I couldn’t. I told her about my ‘sister’ in Rwanda from Women for Women International and how all my giving budget was slated to her education so that she could start her own business to feed her 3 children.

Sales Is The Hardest Thing

As I do with every sales person who sells to me, no matter whether they’re begging for money on the side of the highway or at my door, I felt compassion for this person. I told her that she was doing a hard job and a good one. I gave her encouragement for what is certainly the hardest job in the world. Because everyone is a buyer but not everyone is a seller. She thanked me profusely and confessed that a lot of people had been mean to her. They’d been angry at her call and rude to her.

Being Mean To Sales People

If you find yourself being rude, impatient, angry and just unpleasant to anyone trying to sell to you, take stock. Look at why you’re angry. Why you’re annoyed. What beliefs are going through your head about sales? Then bring it full circle and look at your beliefs about selling in your own business. How your lack of trust of sales people reflects on your abilities and aptitude to sell. I’m going to bet that you’re going to be surprised at how your core beliefs about sales actually limit your own business success. Because I have long come to understand that selling is a service to people who don’t know I can help them. Selling is letting people know that I exist. Selling is serving. And the moment I got that, my sales soared. I wish the same for yours.

Want to reposition your messaging to grow your leads? Follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, watch me on YouTube or connect with me on LinkedIn –and let’s talk.