Loving Willy Loman

Career reflections over 32 years

When I was at university (1985-1988, Birmingham University, Edgbaston), I would go hunting in the campus library to find plays in the drama section, to take out and read.  This was one of my escapes and mental holidays from the business of business. Some time off from Price Earnings ratios, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, monopolistic competition and the fallacy of the mixed economy. 

Two plays in particular that I remember well, and that I’ve gone back to over the years, are Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, and Glengarry Glen Ross, by David Mamet. I’ve read them a few times. I’ve seen them both on film. I’ve seen Glengarry on the stage at the National Theatre. 

In both, a once great salesman is now at the lowest ebb of their skills, career and powers; is now so far declined that no-one takes them seriously and they find it hard to exist. They have lost their drive and spirit. 

I remember thinking three things at the time. 

First, that Sales is a crummy, phoney and dispiriting job. Secondly, that I was glad I was going into a profession, Accountancy, that had prestige and stability, and that I wouldn’t have to worry about the unpleasantness of “selling”. And thirdly, that if I ever got to the stage of Willy Loman (in ‘Salesman’) or Shelly Levene (in ‘Glengarry’), that I’d know it was time to go, and find something else to do, that I was happy doing. 

Well, I was young and innocent in the ways of the world. 

Both these characters were “old” to me. As a 19 or 20 year old, anyone over thirty must have seemed so.  

I’m now 52.  The approximate age of “Shelly Levene, fifties”.  Now, over thirty years and a full career on from those early-adult-bookish-theatrical-excursions, I can reflect back on each of my three thoughts.

First two thoughts (1987): sales is a crummy business, and I wouldn’t have to do it. 

Opinion now (2020): No it’s not, and yes you do. 

Even accountants have to sell eventually. I moved into consulting after nine years as an accountant, and once you begin to develop a set of skills and you gather experience, you start to take an interest in the business of business.  You see that to grow your firm, you have to convince clients that they should use you and your team and your firm’s services. 

Sales is a respectable profession like any other. It may not have a prestigious chartered association to be a member of, but those who ply this trade, know that it takes every skill and imagination and nuance and instinct and empathy, that pretty much all other professions require: medicine, law, accountancy, teaching, marketing, information technology, journalism, building, plumbing.  In the USA, academic articles in the Harvard Business Review are written about “The Psychology of the Salesman” and conferences the size of mid-sized towns are held in Las Vegas hotels to honour salesmanship and the art of the sale. 

Good salesmen, like another character in Glengarry, Ricky Roma, are subtle. They don’t sell in an obvious way. They convince the client that they need and want what he has to sell. And in consulting, you wouldn’t survive if you didn’t deliver tangible outcomes and lasting value to clients.  The other thing I learned is that clients buy people.  The ‘brand’ was in fact the named people on the team. So let’s not be sniffy about salesmen. They have a necessary job. 

Final thought (1987): If I ever got to the stage of Loman/Levene, I’d go and find something else to do.  

On this one, I agree with my twenty year old self.   

James Neophytou is an Executive Partner at IBM. You can follow James on Twitter at @jamesneophytou

Playwright Arthur Miller and his wife Marilyn Monroe