Make (sales) history : here, NOW!

Change the dictionary definition of “Sell” – leave a comment, pass the word on

I’m passionate about the sales profession and I am ready to take action against anything that supports the negative stereotypes about sales people.

Take the following Concise Oxford English Dictionary definition of “sell” (edited to include just the directly relevant points) :

verb 1 hand over in exchange for money. 3 (of goods) attain sales. 6 persuade someone of the merits of.

Their definition barely touches on what selling as a profession – your profession - actually is. Consider the following;

1. hand over in exchange for money.

And

3. (of goods) attain sales.

Personally, selling high value B2B services with a very quick and easy handover of new customers to the account managers, this element of the definition describes what I do for about 0.05% of my time. It’s like defining “football” as “scoring goals”.

6 persuade someone of the merits of.

This is better, but only marginally! In sales methodology “SPIN Selling” 1 out of 4 stages and in “Solution Selling” only 2 out of 9 stages deal with active persuasion.

I would say that accurately reflects the amount of time I spend “persuading”. This is like defining “cooking” as “putting things in an oven” when in fact, the activity of cooking as it is commonly understood, involves much, much more, including planning, preparation and presentation. My question is; where in their definition are the following points and activities covered?

• Lead generation
• Prospecting
• Qualification
• Discovery, understanding and development of pains/problems
• Etc, etc

By focusing on the transaction and persuasion elements of sales, the Concise Oxford English Dictionary’s definition supports the stereotypes of pushy sales people. We deserve to have our difficult and varied job conveyed and understood correctly.

I have already contacted publishers Oxford University Press (OUP) about this but was not convinced by their answer that they fully understood the weaknesses of their definition.

So more needs to be done. We, together, will make a small part of sales history - we are going to change the dictionary definition of selling.

What you need to do to get involved:

• Leave a comment with your support as evidence to take to OUP (and your ideas for a more precise definition if you have any). Leaving a comment takes seconds and requires no registration.
• Important : Send an email to every sales person you know and give them the opportunity to do the same (see suggested text below)
• Add this post/blog to any bookmarking/social networking sites/services you use
  

When we have built our case I will take it to the offices of Oxford University Press get the definition changed on behalf of the readers of SalesItch.com.

Let’s do it – take 10 seconds to show your support and get your friends to do the same. It’s the best thing you’ll do all day. Here’s the copy’n’paste email text :

Hello all

I am making sales history by showing my support to change the dictionary definition of the verb to “sell”. It takes seconds: just go to www.SalesItch.com and read “Make (sales) history today”.

Thanks


Show your support here.