Sales - love it or hate it?

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Out of curiosity, is anyone here good at sales? Or even enjoy it? I was wondering if this is an autistic thing, as I absolutely hate the process of having to 'sell' anything to anyone. Unless it's a very straightforward listing product x for price x on a website or something (although even online sales bores me). I love designing and building stuff and can cover pretty much any other role in a company bar very specialist jobs (which obviously require years of study). But the second the manufacturing is complete, my interest drops to 0% and I want to move on to the next product. If I'm working with other people, I can hand over the sales bit to them at this point. But about 90% of things I've built in the past have never hit the market because... I don't know. It's like a huge mental block.

I'm pretty sure it's linked to communication skills, as I can't stand people selling to me either. I mute all adverts, will avoid buying something that is 'sold' to me even if I might have considered buying it up to that point. It just really grates on me when anyone tries to convince me that I should purchase something. It seems so ingenuine and forced and I immediately distrust that person/product. It's as if my brain perceives it as a threat. I already struggle with basic communicating and now they are using words and psychological tricks to change my mind and I'm no good at picking up on those. So as a defense mechanism, I mentally shut down and want to push them/it away.

I've also met a lot of dodgy people that were good at sales (a couple in my family) because they were good at manipulation and being pushy/controlling. I'm not saying all sales people are inherently bad. There was just an overlap in this case.

The people I've worked with who had autistic traits were not natural salespeople and preferred more technical non-client facing roles. I'm curious to know if there's a general trend.

Is sales something you struggle with (either as a skill set that you lack or a negative reaction to being sold to)? Or do you love and/or have a natural talent for it?

I think I would do good in specific sales jobs.
Like, if a customer comes in looking for a couch, I could investigate them a little bit, and offer them a product on the floor that I think would suit them, explain the benefits

Or, travel agent. Where I customer tells me where they want to travel and I find them the best deal or package for their needs.

These jobs are benefited by research which is a strong point of mine

What I would struggle with is unsolicited sales. I wouldn't feel right, it just feels like I'm conning them into buying what I am selling.

My biggest downfall is a lack of a bubbly personality. This gets mentioned a lot in advertisements for sales jobs. And as much as I try, I can never display a bubbly personality, I'm still not entirely sure what it means.

Yes. Done a fair few years of sales and though it involved one of my special interests, I did find the way that businesses and companies wanted staff to act etc to be missleading and false, so I adapted my own more natural style and never pushed sales. I always let the products sell themselves and my approach was in regards to the enthusiasm I had for the product. I could not sell products I did not like. I was too honest. Fortunately, I had a manager who appreciated this. He really brought me on! I did avoid selling interest free credit store cards though as these were loan agreemsnts pushed onto customers by deception. I told the truth.I did not stop those who wanted them from having them, but I would say to cuetomers (And they appreciated it) that if they really wanted a bicycle, and needed one urgently, to buy something cheap secondhand (I even offered one guy to look at whatever buy he bought for free to ensure it was roadworthy and make a few adjustments) if he wanted, so he could save up and get something good at a later date rather than risk getting into debt wit the loan agreements. Staff were told they would be sacked if they didn't do any and top performing staff would have their names on a board etc. I averaged one or two a month and that was only by customers choice. Not mine!

Sales were a thing where I enjoyed talking about bikes as it wasan i terest of mine, but I couldn't do it if the product was outside one of my special interests.
Where I worked also sold clothes and shoes and other things. We all had shoe training even if we never sold any as it was compulsary. I could relate to the mechanical qualities of shoes so I could fumble through but if it came to buying for fashion I woulr not have a clue. For me it was about the mechanics of it if that makes sense?
Clothing for fashion I was way out of my depth, but I did find I could do it by simply taking customers to the clothe roughly their size and let them carry on! I could not say if it looked good on them or not, as to me, as long as it fits it looked ok, but I rarely had to... BUT when I was later unemployed, I was told that due to my sales experience I should apply for jobs in other areas of sales. I saw jobs going in a clothes shop that had newly opened up in town so I applied for it but for some reason they thought that despite my years of sales experience selling bicycles and cycling accessories and equipment, that I would not be suitable. The store was named after a woman so had womens clothes. It was called "Ann Summers".
I gave up trying other types of sales as I knew I could not really sell outside of my special interest. I would be way out of my depth! It is like when I was talking to a neighbour about trains (My main special interest) and my neighbour was politely listening, and my Mum said "Why don't youtalk about something she likes?" and I put my foot in it by saying while in front of my neighbour "But Mum! I don't know anything about horses!" (Oops! She is a brain surgeon).

Anyway! I hated the subliminary brainwashing side of sales. The repeating loud music was torture! The new clothes smell caused me shutdowns. I could never lie to sell! Customers appreciated that and came back again and again!

I MUCH preferred working on my own round the back with the bikes!

I was horrible at sales, mainly because I have trouble thinking on my feet. I also have a much easier time writing/typing -- where I have to think out what I'm communicating -- than speaking, where I have to communicate instantaneously.

i was good at selling audio equipment to folks. i just pointed out how the various features could give them more musical enjoyment in their own listening rooms.

When one is selling things one loves (E.g. ones special interest) it is easy!
If one is selling things one does not like it is a BIG problem as one can't do it. Couldn't lie to customers!

The tough one for me wasn't that I used to work in the area of my secondary special interest. (Which I did). It would have been if I worked in the area within the heart of my primary special interest as I would not be able to let it go! Haha! I would want to buy and keep everything myself!


I was forced into sales at the age of 18 as I started working in a bicycle shop as I loved repairing bicycles. This did require two years of additional training from what I already knew, as I had known the basics such as changing axles on wheels or changing caliper brake cables etc through working on my own bikes, but there was so much within the mechanicwl side of bicycles I had to learn. (When they give a day or a weeks training it is no where nesr enough to do things safely. Takes ages to learnthe proper way. Most learn from people who don't know the tricks of the trade themselves and perpetuate bad practices such as setting up new brake blocks dead flat so they vibrate and squeel!)
But anyway! While I was there, initially I was dead quiet and hardly spoke a word to people I did not know (Or even those I did know), so it took a while for me to open up so I could serve customers and I was often forced out onto the shop floor to do that when the boss wasnt there (By the other worker if he had something he was concentrating on round the back) and somehow I managed! After all! I did love bicycles! BUT what I found the hardest part of the job was not dealing directly with the customers, but dealing with them over the phone! I dreaded doing this bit and the boss and the other worker (Older than me. He trained me up on bike mechanics) knew this so would ask me to phone customers to collect their bikes... A task I hated doing!
Once while doing this I got the blame for a phone call I did which wasn't my fault. When a bike repair came in, we would have to ask the cudtomers name and telephone number, or if they had no phone (Some didn't), their address. So when this bike came in the guy said a shortened version of his first name and gaveme a telephone number. The shortened form was Dai which was short for David, the most popular name in Wales at the time, but as I had his telephone number, I did not need anything else... Or so I thought. (Seemed at the time that every other guy was called Dai in those days, and "Dai's" would have a knick name added such as "Dai Treechopper" who demolished a row of trees when he went to take a test on a bus and the "Treechopper" name stuck. Manybof these Dai's were so well known by their knick names, many of us never knew thei rewl sirnames! Even seen knicknames on grsvestones so people knew which Dai it was!
So on the list of bikes needed picking up this one busy summer where we had what must have been 50 bikes in for repair and around half of them were ready needing picking up, I got to Dai on my list, so I phoned the number and asked "Is Dai there?"
The reply came "This is the steel works. We have around 1500 workers. There are over 50 Dai's working here. Which one do you want?"
" The one that left his bike at the bike shop (I gave the bike shops name) ", and he made an announcement over a tannoy and within a few minites of waiting Dai came to the phone and I told him that his bike was ready to be picked up and gave him the price etc.
Now when I had told the other worker, he did not believe me that I didn't know I was phoning the big steel works or that the guy never gave his sirname. He thought I had done it without thinking. He thought it was hillarions that I phoned such a big works and asked for "Dai". It wasn't my fault but he wouldn't have it!
I never really liked using phones!
Oh. My Grandmother (Dads Mum) was brought up as an orphan, and worked as a child being passed from one relitive to the next until she was passed to a mansion house owned by a wealthier relitive and became a servent. She learned how to cook there, and could not read or write until after she retired from work a full ten years after her retirement age as her last job had been a cook in an optical factory where they made the glass lenzes for glasses. She had lied about her age as she loved the job so much! Ten years after they caught on and they were so impressed, they paid for her to learn to read and write!
But her first time using a phone, one would get straight through to the operator, and I later worked for the lady and her husband who was the phone operator in those days. The operator asked "Which number please?" and my Grandmother asked " How many numbers have you got? "
This phone operator worked in the exchange which was in those days part of the post office, and her husband was the head postman. When I briefly worked there, he was in his 90's and she was in her mid to late 80's. I was told that he was strict so to be careful of him, but he was so elderly he had mellowed a lot with age. And his wife had taken a shine to me much to the jelousy of another postman who was the one she preferred to bless before I got there. It was funny. Th round had got larger and with more post than ever before, and it was taking from 0600am to 2000hrs to finish on some days with just one 25-30 minute break, but the same thing had happened on the shorter round I had started on. He had approached me and said "Late again!" and was tryingto be strict to tell me off, and his wife would come running in front of him " Had a hard day? Have a biccy! " (While passing me a biscuit) and at the same time the postman who was her favourite in the past was saying "I want a biccy!" It was hillarious!
But innher younger years when she was working the phone exchange, it also did the phones in the surrounding villages, and my Mum remembers having to phone a company to ask a question to get back to them with a reply. She asked to be put through. Then the second phone call a few miutes later the operstor said "No. You rang them just now. I'm not putting you through!" and hang up on her! This lady was hillarious and such a character! I think everyone was in those days!