How good are you at Selling Souls? More specifically, how good at selling your soul? How important is your integrity? When the client acts like a jerk will you go along to get the order? When your manager is a useless pen pushing politician do you smile sweetly and agree? When you just know the organisation will screw up delivery do you toe the party line?
Everybody who sells anything in any industry comes up against this problem. Some are really good at it, and others aren’t. Usually the guy who goes along gets along. S/he’s rewarded for being one of the team. Nobody likes rebels who challenge the status quo. After all clients and managers and pen pushers all have to swallow their pride. Why shouldn’t the guy doing the selling?
The difficult types who don’t go along end up retaining a perverse sense of self worth but lose friends and money in the process.
Who’s the winner here? The one with the clear conscience, or the other with the cash?
Ultimately we all have to go along to get along. The only question is at which point do we bale out, because doing stuff the wrong way always ends in tears. Selling the wrong thing in the wrong way makes other people happy, for a while. After that comes the downside.
This is a conundrum yours truly has wrestled with for more years than he cares to remember.
Circumstances have always dictated the answer. There are times – actually most times – when I’ll find ways of justifying the selling of my soul but eventually conscience takes over and I’ll lose it.
Personally I resent somebody who doesn’t act in accordance with the professional standards I expect of myself, and ultimately they’ll get told to find another guy.
Knowing I’ve done the wrong thing to gain a short term advantage, because the only way to win was to go along with somebody who didn’t understand the implications, ALWAYS leaves me feeling dirty.
For me Selling My Soul always sucks.
But then I’ve never made as much money as the people who didn’t care.
How about you?
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- Bush: “I Did Not Sell My Soul” [Don't Sell A Soul] (gawker.com)
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