Why we need to revalue the profession
of sales in France
OP-ED. Better recognition of the profession and commensurate remuneration would encourage brilliant graduates to pursue this profession. And would improve our foreign trade.
By Jean-Marc de Fety
3rd April 2024
Why is France in danger today, in 2024 ? In particular because the debt of its State has become abysmal, and continues to grow. It is difficult not to see thyat this situation will, one day, be the source of a major crisis, at least financial.
Why does the state go into so much debt ? Quite simply because its expenses are much higher than its revenues. A first reason explaining the insufficiency of revenues is to be found in the various taxes, above all directed towards an economy which is impoverished, at least since the beginning of the 2000s.
A nation like France is an economic entity which also aims to make profits. The latter being a marker of the prosperity of the country and its population. One of the indicators to consider to attest to the economic success of a country is its trade balance, or the ratio between its imports and its exports.
However, since 2004 the French trade balance has been in deficit every year. In other words, each year we have bought more from other countries than we have sold to them, continuously. Worsening, year after year, this trade deficit has become abysmal. An economic entity like a company, which experiences a deficit, increases its losses. France has consequently experienced financial losses since 2004. What are the reasons for this trade deficit ?
Prioritize marketing, finance or strategy
During the Trente Glorieuses – the thirty years following the end of the Second World War – France was very prosperous abd very profitable when it came to foreign trade. How were industrial and service companies organized ? On one side, there were the scientists, elite executives trained by our major scientific Grandes Ecoles, and on the other, the salespeople, fiercely selected by the major Ecoles de Commerce.
The latter were selling the products designed by the company’s scientists with great success. Unfortunately, these selections, training and organizations, which made our companies export champions, were called into question during the second half of the 20th century.
It was during this period that the major Ecoles de Commerce decided to compete with American business schools. These universities intended, across the Atlantic, to train, also after selection, future business leaders, and focused not on a profession (science, sales, etc.), but rather on the management of people ant the strategy of business.
These business schools recruit their students for MBA (Master of Business Administration) type training, not two years after the A-Level, but after, on average, five years of professional experience in very operational functions.
From now on, French Ecoles de Commerce, which have become management schhols or business schools for around fifty years, ask their students to avoid purely sales functions, in order to favor marketing, finance or strategy functions.
Pillar of business success
This is how we lost our exceptional salespeople. Graduates from the most prestigious French Ecoles de Commerce simply no longer want to do sales ! France no longer has these elite salespeople who largely partcipated in the trade, and therefore economic, success of the country during the Trente Glorieuses.
The only sector that still manages to attract Ecoles de Commerce graduates to sales roles is finance. For the simple reason that very well-paid positions are offered to these young executives.
Revaluing the profession of sales, denigrated – and apart from the previous case, generally very poorly paid – is therefore a necessity. This is a particularly French exception that is not found in the rest of Europe or in Anglo-Saxon countries.
Given the export performance of our companies, it is becoming urgent to revalorize this extraordinary profession, which allows us to be in contact with other cultures on a daily basis, particularly in the export sector. Which offers the possibility of human enrichment. The sales finction is not only exciting, but it is also a pillar of the success of a company.
« Mercenaries » from abroad
Until the end of the 2010s, the main successes of the most successful French comapny in terms of exports, Airbus, could be attributed to the group’s sales director, an American ! Unbelievable… The selection made at the entrance to major Ecoles de Commerce is nevertheless ideal, on one hand, mathematics, which suggests a certain reasoning capacity of the candidate, and on the other, general knowledge – literature, philosophy, history, geography – and languages.
To « sell » well for export, it is necessary to know your interlocutors well, their regional or national history, even their literature, while impressing them with your own culture. At the same time, this serves the interests of the company represented. Upgrading the judgment made on the sales profession and the remuneration associated with it would encourage more brilliant Ecoles de Commerce graduates to practice this profession. Allowing, ultimately, to restore the health of French economy, by relaunching the export machine.
On the other hand, it would be illusory to think that this change, even if it it were made now, would not take many years to bear fruit. In the emergency characterized by the situation of high debt in the country, we today need « mercenaries » from abroad. Individuals capable, like the former sales director of Airbus, of reversing the depp and unfortunate trends in our foreign trade. France is in danger because, among other reasons, French elites despise the sales profession. It is becoming urgent and important that this change.
Jean-Marc de Fety, MSc Mines Paris, Senior Advisor
By Jean-Marc de Fety
3rd April 2024
Why is France in danger today, in 2024 ? In particular because the debt of its State has become abysmal, and continues to grow. It is difficult not to see thyat this situation will, one day, be the source of a major crisis, at least financial.
Why does the state go into so much debt ? Quite simply because its expenses are much higher than its revenues. A first reason explaining the insufficiency of revenues is to be found in the various taxes, above all directed towards an economy which is impoverished, at least since the beginning of the 2000s.
A nation like France is an economic entity which also aims to make profits. The latter being a marker of the prosperity of the country and its population. One of the indicators to consider to attest to the economic success of a country is its trade balance, or the ratio between its imports and its exports.
However, since 2004 the French trade balance has been in deficit every year. In other words, each year we have bought more from other countries than we have sold to them, continuously. Worsening, year after year, this trade deficit has become abysmal. An economic entity like a company, which experiences a deficit, increases its losses. France has consequently experienced financial losses since 2004. What are the reasons for this trade deficit ?
Prioritize marketing, finance or strategy
During the Trente Glorieuses – the thirty years following the end of the Second World War – France was very prosperous abd very profitable when it came to foreign trade. How were industrial and service companies organized ? On one side, there were the scientists, elite executives trained by our major scientific Grandes Ecoles, and on the other, the salespeople, fiercely selected by the major Ecoles de Commerce.
The latter were selling the products designed by the company’s scientists with great success. Unfortunately, these selections, training and organizations, which made our companies export champions, were called into question during the second half of the 20th century.
It was during this period that the major Ecoles de Commerce decided to compete with American business schools. These universities intended, across the Atlantic, to train, also after selection, future business leaders, and focused not on a profession (science, sales, etc.), but rather on the management of people ant the strategy of business.
These business schools recruit their students for MBA (Master of Business Administration) type training, not two years after the A-Level, but after, on average, five years of professional experience in very operational functions.
From now on, French Ecoles de Commerce, which have become management schhols or business schools for around fifty years, ask their students to avoid purely sales functions, in order to favor marketing, finance or strategy functions.
Pillar of business success
This is how we lost our exceptional salespeople. Graduates from the most prestigious French Ecoles de Commerce simply no longer want to do sales ! France no longer has these elite salespeople who largely partcipated in the trade, and therefore economic, success of the country during the Trente Glorieuses.
The only sector that still manages to attract Ecoles de Commerce graduates to sales roles is finance. For the simple reason that very well-paid positions are offered to these young executives.
Revaluing the profession of sales, denigrated – and apart from the previous case, generally very poorly paid – is therefore a necessity. This is a particularly French exception that is not found in the rest of Europe or in Anglo-Saxon countries.
Given the export performance of our companies, it is becoming urgent to revalorize this extraordinary profession, which allows us to be in contact with other cultures on a daily basis, particularly in the export sector. Which offers the possibility of human enrichment. The sales finction is not only exciting, but it is also a pillar of the success of a company.
« Mercenaries » from abroad
Until the end of the 2010s, the main successes of the most successful French comapny in terms of exports, Airbus, could be attributed to the group’s sales director, an American ! Unbelievable… The selection made at the entrance to major Ecoles de Commerce is nevertheless ideal, on one hand, mathematics, which suggests a certain reasoning capacity of the candidate, and on the other, general knowledge – literature, philosophy, history, geography – and languages.
To « sell » well for export, it is necessary to know your interlocutors well, their regional or national history, even their literature, while impressing them with your own culture. At the same time, this serves the interests of the company represented. Upgrading the judgment made on the sales profession and the remuneration associated with it would encourage more brilliant Ecoles de Commerce graduates to practice this profession. Allowing, ultimately, to restore the health of French economy, by relaunching the export machine.
On the other hand, it would be illusory to think that this change, even if it it were made now, would not take many years to bear fruit. In the emergency characterized by the situation of high debt in the country, we today need « mercenaries » from abroad. Individuals capable, like the former sales director of Airbus, of reversing the depp and unfortunate trends in our foreign trade. France is in danger because, among other reasons, French elites despise the sales profession. It is becoming urgent and important that this change.
Jean-Marc de Fety, MSc Mines Paris, Senior Advisor