Selling your Best Self: Bulldozing Selling Stereotypes

My personal experience Bulldozing selling stereotypes

Published November 20th, 2023

By Lara Holland

What are the ethical implications of selling? What does selling have to do with me, an art major? Keep reading to find out how I found value in Bulldozing Selling Stereotypes.

Selling was never just about Paper. The office set a standard for sleazy salesmen and oddballs like Dwight Schrute. As a result, I can't talk about the versatility of selling strategies in everyday life without someone bringing up The Office or similar character with questionable morals. Although this classic piece of television will likely live rent free in our heads forever, there is something we can learn from Dunder Mifflin's rag-tag team. This is a comedy show and mostly fiction.

Daniels, G. (Creator). (2005–2013). The Office. Deedle-Dee Productions.

My Story

I started thinking about this topic of selling when I started taking a college class called The Power of Professional Selling. Affectionately shortened to POPS. It was my last class to finish up my marketing minor and I wasn't expecting much.

I majored in Emergent Digital Practices at the University of Denver which entails making a bunch of art using technology. I wanted to integrate these technical skills with the soft skills from marketing because I have always been interested in creating things to compel other people. Call it manipulation, or subliminal marketing, or whatever big no-no you want in the ethics book.

However, my goal from the start was to double major in psychology and figure out how I can use art and media to help people. I wanted to cure mental illness and make people feel seen using something I made so figuring out how brains work felt on brand. Marketing was the next best thing when examining the impact of consumer culture and social media. And from there it goes back to selling and making people feel a certain way.

The one psychology class I took did not help me with mind control, color theory from Drawing 1 got me closer, and then finally I figured it out in POPS.

Manning, G. L., Reece, B. L., & Muhney, M. (2004). Selling Today. Pearson/Prentice Hall.

This textbook "Selling Today" was used to teach us practically everything we need to know about selling in a way that checked the boxes for my personal ethical standards. I plan to buy a hard copy so I can refer to these principles later in my career.

It turns out, selling was never about forcing people to feel a certain way or to manipulate people into buying something they don't need. No, marketing people and salesmen use leads and needs discovery to figure out who needs what they are selling. Close the ethics book, we use selling to help people solve their problems in this house.

I learned a lot from this POPS class like how to listen and focus on finding out what a potential customer needs. Picture stepping away from the pop culture references and imagine a salesperson free from stereotypes. My future with an art degree and a marketing minor is uncertain, but I can confidently walk away from this experience and into a career full of selling without a moral dilemma in sight. I will be selling to help people.

Learning Outcome

Significant Learning Outcome 5: Caring

• Consider sales as a possible area of further study or career pathway