Risk & Business Magazine Rogers Insurance Spring 2016 | Page 24

7 Ways Your Ego Will Be Tested in Sales
Overcoming Sales Challenges

BY: PATRICK BET-DAVID, CEO, PHP AGENCY INC.

E

veryone has a bad salesman story.
Regardless of the product, the sales
industry over the years has been beaten up
with negative stereotypes of pushy sales
people with questionable ethics.
I’m not saying this so that you start feeling
bad for the salespeople of the world; they
often end up leading large corporations (ie:
Steve Jobs), sports franchises (ie: George
Steinbrenner), churches (ie: Billy Graham)
and even government (ie: Ronald Reagan).
What I am saying is, being in sales is a boot
camp that will tear you down and build you
up again as a leader.
I remember when I first decided to give
sales a shot back in 1999. I had just gotten
out of the Army and I decided to go work
for a health club in Culver City, California.
I thought that because I was in good
shape, it would be easy for me to sell new
memberships and that was not the case. It
merely took a week for me to realize how
much I hated sales. Years later I find myself
reflecting on how much being