What's the hardest industry you've sold in?

As a sales consultant and trainer, I've helped several sales teams improve their sales language, cycle, and closing performance. However, even though I have my methods that I believe in, it's truly a different experience and lesson with every company that I work with for a variety of reasons, but one big one is industry.


Would you say you've had an easier or harder time selling into Marketing companies? Logistics companies? The service industry (restaurants, hotels, etc.)? Curious to hear if there's any correlation.

4
fuzzy
Notable Contributor
2
CMO (Chief Meme Officer)
GIS, Logistics. Trying to sell mapping data was single-handedly the hardest thing EVER because half the prospects had no idea how to even use it without dedicated dev teams. Made the pool very small. Was very successful though because those deals were big and the company has been around for 30 years in the space. 
GeneralCorp
Notable Contributor
2
General of The War Room
For me selling IT was the hardest because nearly 99% of the time I knew the decision makers were smarter than me and could sniff out the bullshit. Thankfully I had my mans Raj to get technical. But yea, a lot harder than selling ads. 
salesnerd
WR Officer
1
Head of Growth
Selling to PR departments was pretty miserable. They would just... lie to you. They'd tell you one thing and then do the exact opposite. They're all about "spin" so they'd never be honest with you. 
swerve
WR Lieutenant
0
Account Executive
Network security. You're at the mercy of your SE, since reps are _never_ going toe-to-toe technically speaking with a network or security engineer. If your SE sucks, go pick up a bag at another company.

This assumes you're in a deal at all^. Let's talk prospecting for second...

One of the more well-known consultants posted about cold calling being alive a couple years ago. I noticed he led sales teams at a network security vendor, so I DM'd him and asked if cold calling worked in that space. He said "No - doesn't work. You need to be super creative." 

Very difficult to thrive in that world.
fodysseus
WR Officer
0
Sales Manager (Mid-Market)
HR - they are often sadly undervalued by their own company, and thus it was hard to get budget...thanks MARKETING.
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