What Image is the Modern Sales Person Projecting?

Here's a story I was told at a recent conference.

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in California when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him.

The driver, a young man in a fancy suit, polished shoes, expensive sunglasses, and a new tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"

Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peaceful grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his smartphone, and opens a GPS satellite map to get an exact fix on his location. He then downloads an ultra-high-definition photo of the immediate area.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany.

Within seconds, he receives an email that the image has been processed and the data stored.

He then accesses a database and starts compiling a tally.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized printer, turns to the cowboy, and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Bud.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then Bud says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your occupation is, will you give me back my calf?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

"You're a salesman," says Bud.

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required." answered the cowboy.

"You showed up here like you knew everything; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter you are than me, and you don't know a thing about cows. This is a herd of sheep."

"Now give me back my dog."

It's a funny story, but there is a stinging sense of truth about what Bud the cowboy is saying; this is the image of the modern-day salesperson to many people, and it should not be the case.