Selling is hard work. When a day is going well, by the end of it I stink of sweat and my clothes smell like I've just finished a hard gym workout.

I'm a new salesperson. I entered into this contract a year ago after being sold on the idea by the company's chief executive and senior vice president of sales, two very good salespeople.

I've always hired salespeople, not been a salesperson. I knew that being a good salesperson requires, more than anything else, follow through, keeping commitments and being persistent.

But to me, salesmanship always seemed as if it had a certain amount of duplicity or insincerity. The glib statement 'if you can fake sincerity, then you've got it made', was never far away from my mind. As part of selling, speaking with people and being friendly with them, while at the same time trying to sell them something always seemed, somehow, immoral.

I've consulted in the newspaper industry and produced products for the newspaper industry for most of my adult life. Before that, cross-industry design, prototype and performance issue consulting. What I have always sold, in my mind, is integrity.

In a war story session about times gone by, I related a story to a salesperson from another vendor about refunding a customer's money after a product failed to meet the customer's and my performance expectations. The salesperson looked at me blankly for a few moments and then said, ''That's why you sleep well at night,'' and went onto another subject.

The head of an American vendor once fondly and laughingly told me a story about stocking a printer with the preprinted results of what the software he was selling was supposed to produce. In his demo, he pressed a button, the preprinted pages spewed forth, the sale was made, and the customer never knew that no software existed. I was aghast. ''Did you deliver the software?'' I asked. Another blank look. ''Of course, I did,'' he replied. ''I sold it didn't I?'' I've never figured out where that lies in the integrity continuum. He made the sale against his competitor and delivered the product. The customer would never have bought vapourware.

I spoke with the people I trust about selling before accepting this opportunity, given my personality and my fears. Their answers were, as all good answers are, very simple and clear: be who you are and never compromise your ethics. Then, look for prospects who have problems your products can solve.

In our industry the timeline for a sale is usually nine to 18 months. In January 2014, I started selling. Fourteen months later and hundreds of cold calls, unsolicited emails, two trade shows and a road trip from Wisconsin to Alabama, I have a good pipeline and my first major deal is making a decision in the next few weeks.

I was offered the selling contract because I know so many people in our industry, but only one person in my pipeline is someone I knew before last January. How much is luck? Newspapers are buying - the North American pool of vendors has dropped to less than a handful. How much is good salesmanship?

I tend to look at it more in terms of Edison's famous quote, "one per cent inspiration, 99 per cent perspiration". And yet, to my surprise, I enjoy this much more than I thought I would. Perhaps it's because for the first time in my life, I don't have to work. Perhaps it's because I'm more mature, can take a long view and have experience being sold to. Perhaps I always would've enjoyed this, and just didn't know it.

The only measure of success for a salesperson is making sales. It's a bright line, easy to see and understand.



My contract is with a very good vendor, who makes very good products. But, my experience as a vendor has taught me that the best product doesn't always win; bets should be placed on the company with the best marketing and sales team.

The salespeople I compete against are lifelong salespeople. They are the professionals to my amateur status. I should learn this quarter whether I really can run with the big dogs. Pay attention to the signature at the bottom of this column to learn more about my success.

I had a conversation with Jason Holmes, General Manager of Advocate Digital in Victoria Texas, that unexpectedly turned out to be about this very topic.

At the Mega Conference in Atlanta recently, I spent some time speaking with reluctant newspaperman, Dan Easton, of the Victoria Advocate Publishing Company. Dan married into the family. As a software engineer working in the oil industry, Dan swore that he would not enter the newspaper business. Seven or so years later Dan runs the show and is an uncontested success with 27 per cent of his revenue coming from digital. To learn about their success Dan put me in touch with Jason.

Jason credits his success to some very easy decisions:

Solve the 'Innovator's Dilemma' - which basically says that you can't succeed at true innovation when that innovation threatens the workings of the organisation. Jason credits Dan's commitment to creating an entirely new organisation to implement this innovation. Advocate Digital.

I ended my column about the last Mega Conference with a question about print and digital, "Can't we concentrate on two goals at once". Jason's surprising answer is ''no.''

A separate company that handles all digital immediately dispenses with the adage that legacy salespeople can't sell digital. Jason is quite clear that sales people who have sold traditional print can very successfully sell digital, but no one can sell digital and legacy at the same time. With digital moved to a separate organisation the problem disappears. (The print people can sell digital if they wish, and some do occasionally.)

Salespeople must trust their products, and Jason solves this with lots of training. The sales people must trust and believe in the products if they are going to be successful selling, which brought it all back and around.

If you believe in your products and understand what they can do it's easier to maintain your integrity as a salesperson.



It is said that a rising tide lifts all boats. The mood at last year's Mega Conference was one of optimism, tinged with a bit of surprise that everyone else felt this way. This year the optimism seemed to give way to confidence and no surprise that everyone felt like this.

To me this was most evident in an exchange with someone at a newspaper chain who mentioned that his contingent flew to the conference in a private jet. It's been a very long time since anyone at a newspaper tradeshow mentioned to me that he and his group had flown in on a private jet.

• Newspaper systems industry veteran John Juliano writes regularly for GXpress Magazine. He is North American vice president of business development at Miles 33. Contact him at john@jjcs.com