The one skill you must learn and master to succeed
When I was born, my mother had a growing “Institute for Secretarial Studies”. Why didn’t she just call it the School of…? I hope I remember to ask him one day. And now I remember that most people referred to her high school as a typing school. The typical ones were sought after everywhere in those days. It was a rare skill and owning a typewriter was not necessarily a luxury but a symbol of business status, much like owning a laptop today. Since their job was to write B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business-to-customer) correspondence, typists often doubled as secretaries or, let’s say, all secretaries had to be typists. That explains why Mom named it the Institute for Secretarial Studies and not the Institute for Typing, and actually trained students to become secretaries.
What is the point? The ability to use a typewriter was an indispensable high-tech skill decades ago. But today? I am writing this on my mobile phone and will make it available to the world with a tap on my screen. The glorified typist is gone forever. We are all typists today! That ability was a fad, like many others. In fact, you can think of many other abilities that are extinct or endangered in the 21st century.
What skill never goes away?
Let me tell you a little more about my mom. She had to close the institute when I was 8 years old or older, due to health problems. But she did not withdraw. She was too strong to do that. She opened a grocery store and later added a patent medicine store. I was too young to see her vigorously sell her institute to parents and young adults, but I saw her drive her sales with her grocery and medicine store. I quickly learned that all businesses are about sales and mys truly became a ‘store manager’ at age 11. Yes, it was a neighborhood store, but I’m grateful for that ‘experience’.
If you’re wondering why we’re talking about my childhood instead of the one skill you need to learn and master…
Back to my mom’s typing school, someone had to sell the typewriters, someone had to sell the stationery, the ribbon was sold, the desks were sold by a furniture maker, the classrooms were rented (still a sale) , students and teachers My mom and I wear dresses and shoes that are sold in stores. And I remember the banana street vendors that I was especially fond of, they made my life sweeter.
Still don’t get it?
In the corporate world, they call it different names. Business Development Manager, Business Development Executive, Business Development Assistant, Marketing Executive, Financial Planner, Financial Advisor, Account Manager and much more cheeky names. Very few are direct in calling you a sales representative. But it seems that only ice cream vendors are called vendors! Did you notice that I used seller instead of seller, at the beginning?
The seller or seller must know a little about everything. He must be an eloquent speaker, a Shakespearean writer, a technology enthusiast, an excellent accountant, economist, teacher, banker, and everything in between. She completes or combines all the Roles in the value chain. The seller is indispensable!
You can write a million lines of code. Without someone to sell your app, you’ve only wasted time, coffee, and cookies. Ask Facebook, Uber, Google, Airbnb, they will tell you that sales are everything!
Have you ever been asked in an interview: Can you sell me item X in 2 minutes? Even if it’s not a sales job, they want to know if the company was in trouble and everyone was sent out into the field as a salesperson, you would manage. In the end, all a business does is sell.
I hope you are now convinced and not confused (please let me know if a similar line ends school debates in countries other than Nigeria) that sales is the only skill you need to learn and master.
PS: We recently asked graduates in an African country to apply for internships at a tech company. One of the fields on the application form was “List any sales experience you have (optional).” Because it was optional, 55% of applicants skipped it. Their apps were promptly removed.