Even if you're not a salesperson, you should still learn sales techniques. That's according to Robert Herjavec, star of the hit TV show "Shark Tank" and author of the new book, "You Don't Have to Be a Shark: Creating Your Own Success."
“Sales is everywhere. Sales is about getting a raise at your job, it’s going back in the workforce. Sales is a mom trying to talk her kid into eating vegetables,” Herjavec told Yahoo Finance recently. “That's one thing we've learned on the show after seven years — if you can't sell, you're going to a hard time getting ahead. You're in trouble.”
But that doesn't mean you have to be aggressive and cutthroat, according to Herjavec.
“When people think of sales, they think you have to be overtly aggressive, you have to be pushy, you have to be mean,” Herjavec says in the above video. “Today the consumer knows too much. The internet has made information available to everybody. It's not about talking — it's about listening to your customers.”
But it’s the hit-or-miss nature of sales that can be daunting to non-sales professionals. Herjavec notes sales is one of the few jobs that is finite — you either get the order or you don't. Since people tend to have a hard time with rejection, Herjavec flips the script to make it more palatable to regular folks. “Sales is about getting an understanding of the needs of the other side,” he says. This is key, he says.
