Waiting for John’s son to join us for dinner, John reminisced about Chad’s beginning in sales. One doesn’t think of sales as a tool for self-transformation, but the “nature of the beast” makes it so.

Chad decided to take up sales when he was tired of his peer’s preoccupation with the “rock and roll” lifestyle and at 17, cut off his long hair to start pounding doors as a sweeper salesman. Transformation #1: the need for pride in appearance and professional presentation.

Usually an off-the-cuff, at-the-seat-of-your-pants type operator, Chad learned through a variety of sales jobs that procrastination kills and lack of preparation and organization buries you. Transformation #2: having a “knack for sales” needs to be backed by product and client knowledge and thorough prep. Chad doesn’t start a day without a written agenda and the working knowledge needed to for the outcome desired.

Chad now is an extremely successful mortgage broker and his peer network has grown from a circle of unmotivated buddies to a valuable weave of productive professional relationships. Having had a hectic childhood that precluded college, the pivotal transformation tool responsible for Chad’s success can be laid at the feet of the most demanding mentor there is: sales.

BrianKim.com, on the same topic, says it this way:

If you ever want to get a free education from the real world in self improvement, get a job in sales.
Sales is literally self improvement baptism by fire.

• Sales forces you to become better.
• It forces you to learn new information.
• It forces you to apply that information.
• It forces you to aim for a clear goal and to achieve it.