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      05-10-2016, 09:32 AM   #19337
Verbiage
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MKSixer View Post
My apologies for ignoring this vibrant and important part of our economy. The ingenuity, resourcefulness, and sheer tenacity of those engaged in providing a highly demanded, bespoke, product in an environment of extreme regulation and negative public perception is nothing short of startling.

The global distribution networks involved in this enterprise are also a model worthy of further study. In most cases, the transportation network must overcome regulatory hurdles, natural barriers, and hostile competitors. Additionally, theft and diversion of the product from its intended markets can be a major factor which can have a negative impact on the bottom line.

The security networks and vetting process that these organizations employ are also a model worthy of additional study. In the realms of personal physical security, production facility security, transportation security and human capital management they are unparalleled.

With a well defined human resources pathway with almost no legacy retirement plans to manage, efficient production facilities and flexible logistics management, these organizations are on the cutting edge of efficient management and profitability which all should strive to emulate.

I apologize for missing this sector. Thank for the correction.
Shit, this was good. LOLOL.

I especially liked the portion concerning efficient "production facilities" and "flexible" logistics management.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jtodd_fl View Post
Great that you would jump at it. A wide range of experience is great. What I think makes someone with Sales experience unique is really the fact that it teaches a few key things:
- Working under pressure - in adverse or ambiguous circumstances
- Learning how to find value
- Communication - speaking the language of value
- Urgency

I now that other disciplines benefit from these traits, but the reality is that there is a component of "sales" in every leadership position. When you lead, you learn to find out what matters to people (employees, investors, customers, suppliers, anyone...), you communicate to them in their language of value (aligning them, motivating them, pushing them). These traits are universal and sales gives people a unique blend of all of these things at the same time. No one is taught the value of urgency or how to be comfortable with ambiguity. Engineers hate ambiguity by nature, their internal language of value is "rightness" or "efficiency" or some other scientifically correct thing. Financiers are black and white people, there are laws and regulations and standards that explain how to do most of it. The people that excel in ANY field are the ones that take the necessaries and add a whopping dose of the intangibles. Someone who is technically proficient, but also adept at communicating and works with a sense of urgency and can quickly take a problem apart and build a solution to it (whether it is a technical problem, a financial one, a marketing one, a cultural one, an organizational one... w/e) is priceless
Damn... that was going to be short...
I really enjoyed this, thank you! I definitely feel as though I exude characteristics of ambiguity tolerance as the majority of my life has involved work in sales or customer service; combined with my keenness and forced scrutiny of business practices and data manipulation, determining of outliers, and anomaly corrections, it's turned me into a real machine, of sorts, at a young age.

Pressure, value, and urgency. Almost like the Holy Trinity of sales, no? Although, I suppose based upon context, urgency and pressure can be interchanged based upon circumstantial conditions and direction.

I absolutely agree with the notion of leadership encompassing varying qualities, having (I think I communicated this with you all) led a team at my healthcare analytics organization. I learned more there than I ever had concerning the workings of management and stakeholder-driven decisions, as well as decisions driven by fear and self-sustenance.
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