Chapter 5. The life of a salesman

 

‘Whenever you’re sitting across from some important person, always picture them sitting in their underwear. That’s the way I always operated in business.’

 
 --Joseph P. Kennedy
 

‘The customer’s always right,

The son of a bitch

Is probably rich

So smile with all your might.’

 
 --Noel Coward

To a great extent, this chapter is probably the most important of all. Why? Well, if you can’t sell yourself, your product or your service, no great idea, genius level IQ, hard work, smart offices or a really well-organised administrative system are going to do you any good at all. Being perfectly honest, if you can’t sell you don’t eat. Please don’t confuse selling with marketing either (that comes in ...

Get Smarter Consulting: How to start up and succeed as an independent consultant now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.