How to Find a Community in the Sales World

Something I’ve heard more than once is how lonely sales can be. You may be on the phone or Zoom all day, but pitch meetings or demos are transactional. Which is fine; sales is transactional. But even within the context of work, humans require more than just business relationships. Another thing I’ve heard from sales professionals is how important community is in sustaining people.

Non-transactional business relationships might sound oxymoronic, but they’re a thing, or at least they can be. For those who prefer radical honesty, we can call these semi-transactional—though, for the record, some sales professionals legitimately enjoy spending time with other sales professionals, even if they are one another’s competition. So, back to emotional sustenance…

BUT I GET THAT OUTSIDE OF WORK

As well you should! Non-work work relationships (these descriptors are getting a bit out of hand) should not cannibalize your social life. Rather, they should be an integrated part of your work life. In our blog on sales and Reddit, we talked a bit about the need to interact with others who understand sales. Sales friends don’t need to replace other friends, but they’re still important.

A SIDENOTE ABOUT FRIENDS

I don’t mean to conflate community with friends. Not all of our friends need to be part of a community. And more relevant to us, not all communities to which you belong need to include friends. The benefits of a community (more on that below) often arise from that intangible collective persona, even more than they do from any individual person.

So why do sales professionals need sales communities? Some of the answers are obvious, especially if you’ve been paying attention to this blog so far. Camaraderie, encouragement, advice, the exchange of information, and, yes, even networking. A lot of communities do yield introductions, and it would be disingenuous to overlook the fact that introductions can change salespeople’s lives.

WHERE ARE THESE COMMUNITIES?

It depends. I’d argue that sales communities fall into at least three categories: official ones, unofficial ones, and that blob that includes both. Official ones are your associations, the groups you access through networking events, and company-organized groups and activities.

Unofficial ones are groups that form a little bit more organically. They are the six-person no buy-in Wednesday poker night that evolved from the two-person post-work venting session between coworkers who haven’t been coworkers since three companies ago. They are the AE pizza nights. The spontaneous, sort-of-quarterly meet ups at a semi-functional bowling alley. The WhatsApp groups that go down a weekly TIL rabbit hole.

And then there’s the nebulous middle. Sales Reddit fits into this category perfectly, as do grassroots organized get-togethers, like lunch and learns. A lot of this middle category, I would argue, lives online, but these are still communities. Our very own Will—my boss and the founder and managing partner of Maestro—started a Slack channel and monthly Zoom hangout for our company’s Hall of Famers (see: our Hall of Fame blog series).

BEFORE YOU TELL ME TO CREATE MY OWN COMMUNITY, JUST DON’T

Fair enough. You’re working a tough job in a tough economy in one of the toughest industries around. The last thing you need, or have time or energy for, is to task yourself with building anything else except for a comfy embrace of pillows on your couch and a to-watch list.

Just know that a DIY sales community doesn’t need to be something you build, per se. Those unofficial communities? They have no minimum attendance. They can be a second person on your couch watching the Great British Baking Show. They may turn into what you think of when you think of a community, or they may just turn into what you need in a community at that moment in time. Remember: communities can be networking outlets, but they don’t haveto be. They can occur at regular cadences, but they don’t have to. They can add to your professional rolodex, your social calendar, and your bowling skills, but they don’t have to. They just need to be whatever you need them to be: distraction, company, an advice column, or a person with whom you can fight about frangipane.

Looking for a sales community? Sign up for Maestro Momentum: The Ultimate Revenue Summit October 20–22!