Sales is like Sales.

It’s my own fault. I listen to too many Podcasts and audiobooks about Sales. Regular readers know I work in advertising sales. More specifically, I work in Radio sales with a healthy dose of Event Sales and Digital Sales. The “Digital Sales” part is even more nuanced. Sometimes I’m in Streaming Audio sales … which can be actual LIVE-streaming audio and can also be Podcasts (and many would say Podcast Sales is its own niche).

Do you pronounce “niche” as “neesh” or “nish”?

Breaking down the “digital sales” further, there’s the audio I already mentioned, but there’s also Paid Social, ConnectedTV, Display, Video and much, much, more.

So when these Sales Podcasts and books and audiobooks compare “sales” to everything else (called an analogy), I’m starting to get sick weary of it.

I won’t stop listening, because I’m a sucker for self help and self-improvement … but I’m just sayin’.

This morning, my motivational Podcast spent 20-minutes describing his long-distance running life …from high-school into his mid-20s and now starting again in his 40s. He said, “sometimes a seller wants to sprint, but real, long-term success is like training for a marathon.”

No. Sales it not like that. I mean, it’s kinda like that. But also, not at all. Did he ever have a boss overseeing his running? Maybe had a coach at one point … but definitely not after high-school. Was his income ever part of the running equation? Was his house payment, car payment, or college tuition tied to how well he runs?

If I go outside, right now, and start running. I’m a runner.

If I go outside, right now, and walk up to someone and try to sell them something … I’m not a seller.

Sales is not like farming or gardening – a popular sales analogy.

“Fear” in Sales is not like being a caveman 30,000 years ago and being afraid of a saber tooth tiger.

Sales is not even like sales. There’s SAAS sales. Real estate sales. Pharmaceutical sales. Home improvement sales – like roofs and windows and siding. There’s B2B sales. And what I do … advertising sales.

Reminds me of the scene in Muppets Take Manhattan when diner owner Pete says, “peoples is peoples” and is zero help to Kermit.

Peoples is peoples. Sales is sales. Running is running. Gardening is gardening – which is different than farming.

Sales isn’t sales. Or, at least, every type of sales is a little different and if someone is giving out sales help … quit with reconsider the analogies. Don’t compare my daily sales efforts to ants or bees or marathon runners or cavemen.

I often wonder, when someone is training for a marathon and are working out with a coach or trainer, does the trainer tell them, “think about running like a guy trying to make his sales quota …and your breakfast and diet are like Salesforce …and you’re sleep regimine is like this spreadsheet and face-to-face meetings…”

Or some entimologist looks at a colony of ants and says, “hey, these ants are behaving like a B2B sales team … that’s the manager … that ant is the seller … and those ants there are the support team.”

Peoples is peoples.

Parts is parts.

Sales isn’t running or baking or farming or hunting or any other think we thinks it’s “like.”

Sales is sales.

Someday I’m going to write my book … “I Hate Sales” . . . which will actually be a love affair with sales.