Rant alert: I saw a post the other day that talked about the intersection of sales and service and it set me off.

When I saw it, I shuddered at the thought of sales and service being separate entities. I’ve said it innumerable times, “Service is not a damn department!” Service is helping people, and helping people is something we all do knowingly or unknowingly every single day. In addition, while so many companies do not seem to get it, they are all in the service business –they all help people accomplish things … and that, my friends, is service.

Thus, everyone in the organization should think of themselves as service instead of shoehorning a small band of undervalued individuals into a department that gets all the problem calls from dissatisfied customers. But I digress.

Let’s address this sales issue.

Now that we know that service is not a department or separate entity but rather an action, virtue, or behavior, you may see the problem. Shouldn’t sales be a service? Shouldn’t sales be helping people accomplish things?

When sales is done right, it is about finding out what people want to do and then advising them on whatever solution will best help them achieve their goals. THAT IS SERVICE.

When sales is done wrong, it fails to really listen and endeavors to manipulate and persuade customers to buy things whether it is what is needed or not. This is the opposite of service …or… perhaps it is service, self-service.

There is no intersection, there is only sales doing its true job, serving customers needs, or not.

Here endeth my rant.

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