I recently read a blog post “Think Recruiting Is Sales? Think Again.“  and then Amy Ala wrote a response I’m a Recruiter. No, a Salesperson. NO, a RECRUITER! That got me thinking about who really is the sales person in a company. It was quite a heated debate on Recruiting Blogs with many people weighing in on both sides.

I didn’t have the time to respond then, but the topic stayed in the back of my mind. I’d like to broach the subject again from a broader perspective.  At first I wanted to respond along the lines of Amy. Of course recruiters are sales people. Just like she said – we are in continual selling mode; to our candidate we sell the client, to our client we sell our candidate, but at the end of the day hopefully all the people in your company are ”salespeople”.  We may not all get paid like “sales” people because they are the ones that get the client to sign on the dotted line, but if not everyone in your company is selling your company brand all the time, then they are doing your company a disservice.

Everyone in the company from the person who greets customers at the front desk (does anyone do that anymore?), customer service, even accounting, all the way up the line to the CEO are selling your company brand every day.  Everyone in the company in one way or another has an impact on customers – good or bad – that impact influences the sales force’s ability to close deals and retain accounts.

It really doesn’t matter what you’re selling, if it’s widgets, people or a million dollar software deal, if your company doesn’t work together as a team with the sales people along the way, they won’t be successful and neither will your company. Do all you can to ensure that all your people are always selling your company brand in a positive way. Happy employees inherently make your customers happy. So really, aren’t we all sales people? Even good old Kyle Lagunas who has his own opinion of who is a sales person!