Opening The Prison Door Of The Selling Culture (A.K.A. A Ticket Out of Hell)

It’s hard to argue with the statement that the most important and critical activity for any business is what they do to reach, engage, and ultimately acquire a customer. So, whether we like it or not, we are always in “sales.”

It’s also hard to argue with our own direct experience (myself included) that what we do, go through, and put ourselves through to reach, engage, and acquire said customer is often unpleasant, i.e. yucky.

Very, very yucky. 

At some point in my business career, while I had become effective in the game of business development, i.e. promotion and sales, I found myself not really liking, let alone enjoying, who I became in the process. The phrase entered my mind, “I need to find a ticket out of hell.”

Long story short, in the process of distinguishing and taking apart for myself the inherited, linguistic framework of sales that predetermines the set of options, actions, and thoughts that are available for each of us, I realized it was possible to invent a new way of reaching, engaging, and acquiring customers that was aligned with how I wanted to do business and, ultimately, with who I was committed to be in the world.

That’s when I got consumed with the idea that I wanted to make available a ticket out of hell for others that are trapped (and may not even know it) in the Forcefield of Sales. 

It will have a lot to do with creating yourself and your company as a Locus For The Extraordinary (see previous blog posts on this topic: Part I and Part II) such that you are freed from the business of chasing, bugging, forcing, funneling, closing, prospecting, hustling… in short: selling.

More to come on this, and until then I invite you to reflect on these questions:

‍ ‍What is the aspect(s) that you least enjoy about business development?

And, why do you think or feel you don’t enjoy it?

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.