Sales Abstract Thesis

The Abstractor
Mar 17, 2024
2 min read

I genuinely love sales. My grandfather was a salesman, my dad was a salesman, my uncles were salesmen, and most of my friends are all salesman. I do a lot of thinking and theorizing about sales, but I’ve never written down the lessons I’ve been taught or am trying to understand, so this blog is going to serve that purpose.

Sales is a craft or trade that is easy to learn, but difficult to master. It is a fulfilling, rewarding, highly valued and well compensated career path that provides an intellectual challenge worth studying, practicing, refining, and mastering.

For those who view sales as a trade, and approach it with the focus and consistency of a craftsman, there is virtually limitless opportunity for earning potential.

SalesAbstract exists for two reasons. The first is self-serving; as a place for me to abstract my own lessons, readings, opinions, methods, theories, and experiences from my active sales career. If no one ever reads this, SalesAbstract will at least fulfill that purpose. The second reason, is to share these thoughts and offer an opportunity for further discussion and debate among other sales professionals who either agree, disagree, or have more to add to the topics presented.

Historically, in trade guilds, whether you were a blacksmith or a painter, you began your career as an apprentice; studying the foundational principals, theories, philosophies, and experiences of the masters who have come before you. Next, you would become a journeyman, going out into the economy with your skill set and putting it into practice. This stage typically lasted for years, or in many cases, a lifetime. I’d argue that this is the phase that the majority of all tradesman spend their lives in, especially in sales. Finally, if a journeyman had committed enough hours in their career to their practice, earned a significant sum of money, and could present their masterpiece to the guild for approval, a lucky few would be given the official title of master.

Sales has changed my life. I have been fortunate enough to experience success and what it has done for my family and I can not be overstated. However, I do not consider myself a master. I am still a journeyman. There are countless books, podcasts, YouTube channels, and training programs created by the many masters of sales that know much more than I do about this profession and I am not by any means attempting to place myself among them. My mission is to systematically consume the information that they have provided, organize it into an archive to be easily accessed for future reference, then put their knowledge and advice into practice, test it, track it, and ultimately post my opinion and analysis for potential discussion.

This is sure to change over time, but to start, here is a rough outline or framework of the topics I want to dig into:

Theory: