Just to recap, this is part 2 of a 4 part series, the four parts being the four lessons I learned from my time as a financial advisor:

1. Basic sales techniques, including but not limited to, being ok with silence, looking for buying questions, and how to take what someone tells you and turn it into a story where you can help them solve a problem (and not to be marginalized, how to write upside down)
2. Every job is a sales job (you’re selling a product or yourself, but you’re always selling)
3. Never turn down a free lunch (I would sometimes have 3 lunches in a day where I bought food for other people… and no I wouldn’t eat three lunches… but I’d for sure get a lunch to take home for every lunch after the first one!)
4. If your job discourages you from being empathetic then your job sucks

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Every job is a sales job

I was truly ignorant of this fact when I first started working after college. My parents were both teachers, and I didn’t see anything in their lives that screamed “sales”. Which just shows how ignorant I truly was of the real world.

I showed up to my job at Ameriprise Financial thinking “alright let’s go start helping people with their finances” without truly considering how I would find those people! Or why they were going to come to ME instead of someone else. And it completely flipped my perspective, because I started to realize that every job was a sales job.

Ameriprise made it explicit and told us that our job wasn’t to analyze or monitor the market but rather to make sales. Hell, I didn’t even get a work computer! I was just on the road or on the phone. But it started making me more critical of all the other jobs that I saw others doing.

Let’s take my parents for example - they were teachers. And teachers aren’t “selling” a product. They’re not out on the streets hocking their wares. They’re not advertising on TV or on the internet. But they’re the ULTIMATE sales people. They have to sell children on the idea that the things they’re learning are worthwhile and have value. And I don’t know if you’ve recently spent any time around any children… but yeesh. That’s a sales process that I can’t even fathom.

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Once you start to understand that all jobs are inherently selling, whether it’s selling your skill set to your internal teams, or selling your ideas to your manager, or literally selling a product, your perspective shifts and empathy becomes incredibly important. Because that realization leads you to, you guessed it, empathy for the people around you!

Instead of thinking just about what you’re doing, and how it contributes to the success of your company, you have to think about how your interactions position you within the company as well. I might be the best iOS developer on the team, but if I’m a pain in the ass to work with, my skill doesn’t matter as much! Because the project manager or product manager are going to not want to come over and talk to me and work with me, they’re going to find someone who is easier to work with even if it means that they may take 10-15% longer to get to the solution.

You’re constantly selling yourself and showing your values at work and in your life, you’re just not thinking about it all the time. I’m personally one of those people that is always in his head, so I’m having a constant running dialogue. But that dialogue is about me and my experiences. And if I want to sell you on the fact that we should work together, or that I should get that promotion, or that I should get that really cool project, I need to figure out what’s motivating the people making the decision.

In some cases, the motivation is purely profit, in which case your sales pitch is why you can help make the project profitable. Sometimes, it’s about creating a unique experience that is a showcase, in which case you need to show that you’re flexible, creative, and willing to take calculated risks. Sometimes it’s about just getting things done, in which case you need to sell that you’re organized, methodical, and consistent.

What some people don’t fully realize is, you can make ANY of these pitches work for you, you just need to understand how to frame yourself and the problem you’re planning to solve.

For instance, I’m not a detail guy. I love high concept, art of the possible nonsense. And so if I’m just blindly walking into a situation, it’s always where my head goes. But most people, and especially most executives, are only receptive to that vibe if it’s backed up by hard data. And like I said… I’m not a detail guy. But I can still make the pitch! Not because I’m going to tell the exec that I’m going to be the person doing all the details. But rather because I’m going to BRING someone who can do all the detail. I’m a big “team” guy, and so my sales pitches are always about teams. Teams can solve the worlds problems, because no matter the situation, we can find the right people to solve the problem or create the value.

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It feels weird to talk about every day life as selling ideas and selling yourself. It honestly feels like a bullshit LinkedIn post that’s written by AI that you scroll past.

But, the reason that people lean on the trope is that there’s truth in it.

I have ride or die people that I’ve worked with. I know exactly how they operate, who they are, and what motivates them. And I bet you, every one of them would say they never “sold” themselves to me. But they’re all wrong. Their vibe, their work ethic, their personality, they all tell a story. And that story is what I’m buying into. Because I can then reframe that story to tell another story, then another story, then another story.

And every once in a while, you get the best version of it… where people don’t even know their own story, and you tell it to them… and they don’t believe you. It’s SUCH a rush to realize you’re about to make someone a super star and they have no idea. They’re just doing their thing, trying to get through the day like the rest of us, and you get the opportunity to put them in a spot to shine.

I love storytelling, and that’s all sales is in the end. Telling a good story. And you know what you need to tell a good story right… empathy :)