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A Career in Sales is No Place for a....

Written by: Dave Kurlan

Article Overview: I must be losing my vision because regardless of the number of times I looked, I still didn't see Sales on the list. So here we are, late into 2008, and the profession is still so disrespected that they...

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A Career in Sales is No Place for a....

If you interview thousands of salespeople like I have, one of the first things you'll learn is that not one of them ever considered sales as a future career when they were in school. They went to school for engineering, music, computer sciences, geography, history, English, and even accounting. None of them went to school for Sales.

While mothers who wanted their sons to be doctors and fathers who wanted their daughters to have a career had some influence in their kids' future, today I observed first-hand another of the possible reasons for this phenomenon.

Our local Chamber of Commerce participates in the Schools/Business Partnership, a good cause to which my company contributes each year. Today the Chamber sent an email asking business people to speak at a local high school and discuss the career paths that they took and why their career might be a good choice for the students to pursue. Here is the list of careers for which they solicited speakers:

Careers/Majors:



* Accounting/Finance
* Architecture
* Art/Music/Film
* Biochemistry
* Biology
* Business
* -Business Administration
* -Business Management
* -Business/Hotel/Restaurant Management
* -Marketing
*

* Chemistry
* Child Development
* Communications
* Computer Science
* Construction Management
* Criminal Justice
* Culinary Arts
* Education
* -Early Childhood Education
* -Elementary Education
* -English
* Engineering
* -Computer Engineering
* - Electrical Engineering
* Exercise Science
* Nursing
* Pharmacy
* Physician's Assistant
* Physics
* Pre-Law
* Pre-Med
* Psychology
* Sports Medicine



I must be losing my vision because regardless of the number of times I looked, I still didn't see Sales on the list. So here we are, late into 2008, and the profession is still so disrespected that they don't even want to expose high school kids to the opportunity to earn more than most of the careers listed above.

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Home > Sales > Dave Kurlan > A Career in Sales is No Place for a
Article Tags: architecture art, arts education, business hotel, business partnership, career paths, computer sciences, culinary arts, development communications, early childhood education, education english, elementary education, engineering computer, high school kids, hotel restaurant management, local chamber, local high school, management marketing, pre med, salespeople, sports medicine

About the Author: Dave Kurlan
RSS for Dave's articles - Visit Dave's website

Dave Kurlan is a best-selling author, top-rated speaker and thought leader on sales development.  He is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling (Dan Seidman), Stepping Stones (Deepak Chopra and Brian Tracey) and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2 (David Riklan).

Click here to visit Dave's website
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Re: Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional Re: Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - [quote="ltrahan":31w9r2iz]Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing[/quote:31w9r2iz] I second the request...
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