--- title: Why the Negative Connotation Around Sales Is No Longer True? | The Sales Blog description: For reasons I don’t understand, the word “sales” still carries a lot of baggage. When I taught at Capital University, I would ask the students to describe image: https://www.thesalesblog.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Sales-woman.jpg --- ### [Now booking SKO meetings for 2026/27! 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When I taught at Capital University, I would ask the students to describe salespeople. We would fill up a whiteboard with words like: “pushy,” “selfish,” “aggressive,” persuasive,” “slimy,” and “slick.” They always came up with more words than this sampling, but it’s enough for you to get the picture that they didn’t have a very positive view of sales—or salespeople. Once we had enough words on the board, I would ask the students to raise their hand if they had a parent in sales, particularly their mother. There were always three or four students with a parent in sales, and one or two were a student’s Mother. Then I asked them why their Mother was all of these terrible things and how they could possibly live with such a monster. The students would laugh and argue that their Mom was the exact opposite of the words on the whiteboard. There are few things worth noting here as it pertains to the word “sales” and the stereotypical salesperson that point to the disconnect of how sales is perceived and how different salespeople are from the stereotype. Salespeople are paid for winning. They do not get paid for losing. This is unlike any other role in business, where one is paid no matter what. All of the roles in business are important and necessary, but salespeople have more skin in the game. Losing is expensive. You give up time and energy without getting anything for your effort. Which leads us to the reason salespeople are no longer the wicked brutes of yesteryear. Because variable compensation structures allow a company to offer higher compensation to people who produce a greater result, the words that describe the stereotype would cause a salesperson to lose deals now. No one has to buy from [a pushy](http://thesalesblog.com/2017/11/12/how-to-be-professionally-persistent/), aggressive, high pressure, slick salesperson. These behaviors would almost invariably produce a loss [in B2B sales](http://thesalesblog.com/2012/12/29/3-ways-b2b-is-different-from-b2c/), making them ineffective as a choice one might make were they trying to create a preference to buy from them. There are very few salespeople who have been taught high-pressure sales tactics over the last few decades, even if there are still some who behave badly. But they are the exception, not the rule. In the future, the negative connotation will not be that a salesperson used high-pressure tactics to try to win a sale, but that they didn’t know anything and wasted their prospective client’s time. ###### Tags: [Sales](https://www.thesalesblog.com/blog/tag/sales) [2018](https://www.thesalesblog.com/blog/tag/2018) Post by [Anthony Iannarino](https://www.thesalesblog.com/blog/author/anthony-iannarino) on March 14, 2018 Written and edited by human brains and human hands. ![Anthony Iannarino](https://www.thesalesblog.com/hubfs/ai-blog-profile-crop.jpg) Anthony Iannarino is an American writer. He has published daily at [thesalesblog.com](https://www.thesalesblog.com) for more than 14 years, amassing over 5,300 articles and making this platform a destination for salespeople and sales leaders. Anthony is also the author of four best-selling books documenting modern sales methodologies and a fifth book for sales leaders seeking revenue growth. His latest book for an even wider audience is titled, The Negativity Fast: Proven Techniques to Increase Positivity, Reduce Fear, and Boost Success. Anthony speaks to sales organizations worldwide, delivering cutting-edge sales strategies and tactics that work in this ever-evolving B2B landscape. He also provides workshops and seminars. Connect with Anthony on LinkedIn, X or Youtube. 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