My day job is sales. In that world most of my time is spent communicating about the products and services of the company I represent. At its best, my nearly 20 years in sales has forged many long term business relationships, a handful of genuine friendships and a satisfaction I served well the company that gave me the opportunity. At its worst... well, you probably have your own stories.
Regardless, selling is an aspect of life that is not going away so it is worth understanding better the good and bad kinds of selling, and how our sales experiences affect the way we think and act when we aren’t spending money.
What I continue to learn is that good selling involves two essential and overlapping ingredients; first, truth-telling about the product or service, and second, understanding how my offer intersects (or not) with the needs, values and life situation of the buyer. When these aspects are ignored only the salesperson comes out ahead, and only financially – one’s reputation can easily be sold for the price of a commission.
The alternative is a salesperson will do justice in both directions. On the one hand, he will honour the company by communicating their message with full disclosure, avoiding the temptation to skirt difficult issues or verbally steamroll the questions of the customer, always allowing enough time and space for them to make the right decision.
You may be wondering what the philosophy of selling has to do with evangelism (or not-evangelism for that matter). To begin, I am emphatically not suggesting God is a company, you are a customer, and Jesus is some kind of product that can be bought or sold to meet your needs. Rather, because selling is often thought about as a form of well-paid manipulation we have as much trouble understanding good selling as we do talking about Jesus. As a salesperson/Jesus follower I want to do a better job with both, but there is some air to clear first.
In our advertising saturated world it is difficult to avoid the accusation raising the subject of Jesus involves the same kind of manipulation inherent in a lot of sales and marketing (basically by telling you why your life will be worthless until you buy our thing). As a result, one of the most important topics on the planet – religion – is rarely allowed into the dinner parties and social events we frequent. However, if ethical and personal selling was our experience we might be less worried raising the subject of religion signaled the onslaught of a hidden agenda. Selling, marketing or advertising Jesus would mean nothing less than cultivating friendships that have no expiry date.
Along these lines, a lesson Apple is learning from Samsung these days is product factoids rarely motivate us in the way a story does. Perhaps it is no surprise then the most appealing sales pitch is some kind of personal testimony. In much the same way, I want to hear about how someone’s life has been impacted (for better or worse) by their decision to follow Jesus, attempting to live out the wisdom he taught his first followers. Listening to a storyteller draws me into a conversation that is alive rather than cornering me into a decision that feels artificially imposed on what seems like an arbitrary point in my life.
The giant elephant in the room caveat to all of this is infomercial insincerity and people can usually smell it from miles away.
Falsehood in advertising makes us suspicious of most things in life, provoking the cynical assumption there is always a hidden agenda because every offer that good cannot be true.
But what happens if the offer really is that good (even if it is good only in the long run) but we can’t raise the subject of Jesus without being accused of manipulating others?
In the end, I am not suggesting the language of selling is appropriate to talking about the most important things in life. But I would like to discuss the meaning of Jesus and his teachings for our time more than I currently do because I want to have conversations that matter, even if we talk about trade deadlines and what’s playing the rest of the time.
Perhaps one way forward is to practice good selling when we aren’t talking about Jesus, and (when we are talking about him) remember Jesus is not ours to process, package or price.
Dan Poxon is a member of the Sheep River Fellowship
