Anyone can be a sales person when you give it away

The latest episode of the BBC’s Apprentice again displayed the culture of sales by business individuals.

So what is a true salesperson?

Is it someone who has that drive and determination to hit the volume of numbers? Or is it someone who can hit the volume of numbers whilst trying to retain some form of profit?

It was clear from the footage display on the apprentice that sales to one guy were just a numbers thing.

In him attempting to sell (or should we say give away) all the stock at no matter what price, it could be augured that the actions which he took were exactly the same as if you or I had just thrown all the stock in the bin.

The footage at one point showed him walking backwards carrying a table yelling at the top of his voice “one candle for £10” then he took another step backwards and then yelled “two candles for £10” in full earshot of the same people. Really is this sales???

The same guy towards the end of the task intervened by phone during a physical sale being made by the sub-team of just two items – saying leave it it's only two items. Sadly reality was that if he had not done this his team would have won the task.

Sir Alan Sugar quite correctly said during his weekly dressing down on both teams that “anyone can do sales if they just give the stuff away..!”

The whole idea of any form of sales is to make money because in reality it's sales that helps a business but it’s the money that makes a business.

You can see exactly the same happening on daily basis within the real world unless it’s your business model once you start precedence of selling on the cheap without any format – you’ll find it tough and a lot of harder work to move away from the gained perception.