The salesman status is among the statuses I have achieved over the past years

The salesman status is among the statuses I have achieved over the past years

The salesman status is among the statuses I have achieved over the past years aside from being a college student. The salesman status is most essential to me and has helped me earn some income while studying as a college student. The most critical role associated with the salesman status is the sales role which is conceptualized as selling products and services to potential consumers. This sales role entails meeting prospects, presenting and demonstrating products, convincing the potential consumers to buy and taking orders from them as well as effecting sales. I gained the sales role majorly through self-learning and hand-on approach. I had the desire to know how sales role is performed and therefore, through self-learning, I gained relevant knowledge of the sales role. However, knowledge alone was not enough, I had to put my knowledge to practice, and this is where I embarked on hand-on approach learning by selling various products, and convincing customers to buy those products. I first started sales way back in college, where I used to sell products and convince clients to buy my products. It is through this sales experience that I learned the sales roles, gained the confidence to interact with various people and get them to buy the products I sell. As a result, my sales experience has been tremendous. As a result, I have gained more experience in selling products and convincing clients to buy the products.

At one time, I had a deadline to submit my college paper, and at the same time, I was required to perform the role of a sale man. As a result, I experienced role conflict as the two roles associated with the statuses of a college student, and the salesman was contradictory. Accordingly, I was in confusion regarding which role to perform first at the expense of the other—to me, being a college student conflicted with being a sale man. Given the significance of roles, role conflict can be extremely challenging and multifaceted, especially when it takes place due to obligations in different statuses. This can be frustrating and lead to friction at work. However, the role conflict is healthy as it helps individuals comfort with day to day situations.

I resolved the conflict by first defining the boundaries that the roles play on a day to day basis. As such, I had to set my priorities in this particular situation to embark on the role that I considered to come first and most urgent. As such, my priority was the role of a student, and therefore I had to pursue and accomplish the role of a student before I embark on my role as a salesman.  I familiarized myself with others and actively listening to their perspectives regarding the situation helped me to ease the tension. This is part of acknowledging the limits of my strength as a role player.

The active listening skills employed includes paying attention, withholding judgment, reflecting, clarifying, summarizing and sharing. Paying attention helped me to think and speak concerning the role conflict. Also, through the judgment skill of active listening, I had to withhold my judgment and suspend criticism in order to listen to others on the role conflict. The reflecting skill helped me to paraphrase critical points and define boundaries that the conflicting roles play daily. Clarifying was an essential active listening tool that helped me resolve the role of conflict.