Mike Rutterford: Scots must stop being scared of the word ‘sales’

THE lifeblood of any successful business is sales – it’s the easiest way to fund a company. But in Scotland we are scared to use the word and still think it’s a bit grubby.

It’s long been recognised in the business community that this is an attitude that needs to change.

Scotland is great at inventing things, but lousy at selling them – and, at the end of the day, there has to be a realisation that everything we consume, other than the air we breathe, is directly being sold to us.

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Put bluntly, you’re not providing anyone with your product or services unless you can convince a customer to part with their money.

Unless you can sell it, you might as well put it in the bin.

And yet people are still scared to use the word, despite sales being of the most vital importance for any company. The whole point of its very existence is sales.

There is also undoubtedly a lack of sales skills in Scotland and across the UK, but until now there’s been no mechanism to address that professionally.

That’s why the launch of a sales division at Edinburgh Napier University should be applauded. We need more education about the importance of sales skills, and the move by the university’s Edinburgh Institute is a firm step in the right direction.

The United States, for example, is a country we could look to. Sales is seen to be a very honourable profession. They don’t apologise for it – they celebrate it.

Or you could look at people from Poland in the service economy – it’s a different area of sales, but they know about service and they are eager to provide that service.

There’s little point in producing lots of graduates that don’t know how to sell whatever they’re creating. You could, for instance, come up with a brilliant idea or create a great bit of software, but it’s for nothing if you can’t get a customer to buy it.

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Scotland has been world class when it comes to brilliant inventions and ideas – now we need to equip future generations with the sales skills to match.

• Mike Rutterford, is an entrepreneur and co-founder of Archangel Informal Investment.