Where’s all the money made? In sales or service? To some, the answer may seem to be “sales”. After all it may appear the aggressive, smooth talking sales person brings home more bacon. That said, don’t be fooled by all the glitz and glam. Behind the sales show is a whole lot of “service”.

The Love Hate Relationship

There has always been a bit of a love hate relationship between sales and service. The white collar sales rep may have a tendency to look down on the blue collar service worker. The down to earth, “less talk more do” service staff also tends to scoff at sales, seeing them as nothing more than a modern day door to door peddler. From way back the sales department has gotten a bit of a bad rap. Sure, there are no shortage of sleaze balls that seem to shamelessly shyster anyone with money. In some cases not even nice old ladies are exempt. Perhaps though, this is nothing more than a few bad apples ruining the reputation of the whole bunch. No doubt, there is still a select group of noble sales professionals who take their jobs quite seriously, and hardly make a practice of deceit.

Putting the bad press aside, sales does tend to draw those with financial ambition. After all, the promise of big commissions in exchange for big sales is quite luring. Service on the other hand tends to be far more grounded. First, anyone in a service related position, typically has to have some type of tangible skill. For example, those in finance have to be adept at accounting. These individuals all in some way or another are providing the company they work for with a “service” in exchange for money. In the case of an automotive dealership, service mechanics are better termed service technicians. As vehicles these days are really as much computer as they are machine. Now a days, service workers really have to be able to wear multiple hats. Ideally they should type on a keyboard as well as they turn a wrench.