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On 9/17/06, William Crawford <wccrawford / gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  I have to disagree there.  A night stock clerk at a grocery store never
> sells anything.  An intern programmer at a corporation never sells
> anything.  (Until he wants to be promoted, and then he's got to sell an
> idea, but I think that's pushing the meaning a bit here.)



William, you walked right past the point. Unless you get a job through
nepotism, you have to sell *yourself* in order to get the job in the first
place. (And even with nepotism, sales is involved because your
mother/father/uncle/political-patron has to convince his/her associate to
give you the job.)

Sales is all about persuasion. So is advocacy. Being disinterested in the
outcome sometimes helps, but not often. (And marketing is something else
entirely.) When I was very young, I worked with a very effective CEO who
once said to me that "Life is sales." Of course he was trying to push my
buttons, and he did, but there is something to what he was saying.

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