After a recent keynote, one of the attendees came up to me and said, “Thank you for your message today. I am tired of feeling as if I need to apologize for anything I do that seems like sales.”
This particular man is an employee of a large nonprofit, and he knows, as many others do, that the nature of what he does and his organization’s success (not to mention his personal success) is rooted in his ability to sell. But shhhh, don’t tell anyone!
So besides the very nice validation of my message, his comments made me begin to think about people who are sales apologists – those people who sell every day (everyone) and deny it (almost everyone). Hey I get it! I do! There are times that we don’t want to come off as “salesy” or selling in some way, and that affects the way we interact with people and the way we deliver the message we need to deliver.
The fact is that selling is a common thread. We sell ourselves, our goals and needs every day. I have been saying this for years, and it’s now time to ask, “Are you a sales apologist?”
