“I hate sell­ing!  I don’t know how you guys do it.”

These were the words of a CEO at a lunch meet­ing I attended last year.  This CEO was address­ing the head of her sales force.  It was a casual com­ment, but one that caused me some concern.

I won­dered what could have pro­duced such a strong neg­a­tive reac­tion from this CEO.  Was she think­ing of past inter­ac­tions with sales­peo­ple who were way short of pro­fes­sional?  Could it be that her intro­verted behav­ioral style makes her fear­ful of seem­ing pushy or manipulative?

Regard­less of her rea­sons, I believe my con­cern is well-founded.  There are too many pro­fes­sion­als and lead­ers who have an unhealthy per­spec­tive of what sales is.

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