I recently heard a guy talking too loudly about his air miles and about getting drunk at a business event. I bet he wasn’t an entrepreneur.

Doing sales is an integral part of entrepreneurship. When you start a business, there is nobody else besides the founders, so the founders will have to do all the sales efforts to get the business off the ground.

Even when the business has started to grow, you cannot stop doing sales as an entrepreneur. As the Founder & CEO of Yonder, a B2B SaaS company, I continue to engage in sales, including regular trade show attendance.

Yet, there is a subtle difference between an entrepreneur selling and an employed sales representative. Of course, this is a general statement, but the example below might illustrate my point.

The Setting

A few weeks ago, I had to attend a trade show during the school holidays. My kids weren’t amused that I’d be travelling during the school holidays, but it allowed me to show my daughter what’s happening at a trade show. For her, it was a week full of learning — hard factors, but also soft factors.

And it’s the soft factors that this article is about.

On the last day of the trade show, the morning started slowly. It was obvious from the number of people in the hall that there must have been an event going on last night.

And suddenly, a guy turns up at the booth right next to ours, talking much louder than he should. He talked about his frequent flyer statuses and about getting absolutely shit-faced last night in a downtown bar.

This guy must be an employed sales representative and not an entrepreneur, I told my daughter. How come I knew?

The Air Miles Brag

Travelling is a necessity when you are in a sales role. If your company serves an international or even global market, you’ll spend lots of time on planes. And with this come lots of air miles and eventually, a frequent flyer status.

Yes, I also was a frequent flyer for many years. But I never talked about my frequent flyer status, and today, I am convinced that the best frequent flyer status is not to have one at all. Because that means you don’t have to travel all the time.

But this guy at the trade show? He bragged about his different Gold status frequent flyer cards, speaking about it way too loudly. I bet he didn’t pay for any of those flights with his own money.

As an entrepreneur, I always compare the costs of travelling to the potential benefits. Travel expenses make up a large share of our sales and marketing budget, so we are diligent about them. The last things we care about are the air miles and the frequent flyer status.

The Drinking Brag

While listening to that dude and his air miles stories, I told my daughter, “Just wait a moment, and he will start talking about his drinking escapades.”

It didn’t take more than three minutes before he started talking about how many bottles of whiskey he drank single-handedly last night. And how much pain it was to get up this morning, and how glad he was that he could fly business class on his way home and then rest for the weekend before going back to work.

I’m certainly not an opponent of concluding important deals in the bar. Now and then, it wouldn’t have been a good idea to drive after such a meeting, and that’s OK. But I never got shit-faced at a business event. That’s because I’m an entrepreneur, and not an employed sales representative.

At my age, recovering from a wild night takes more than one night of sound sleep, and I don’t have that time as an entrepreneur. Travelling is strenuous enough, and the daily business doesn’t stop because you’re travelling. When I get home, I want to spend time with my family and catch up on any leftovers of the week, but certainly not waste my time with headaches and sobering up.

The other thing that’s problematic when you drink excessively: You’re an easy target. That might be semi-problematic if you’re an employed sales representative, but it might be hugely problematic if you’re an entrepreneur. Drunk people are easy targets, and there are plenty of people who pursue their interests at any cost — competitors, industrial spies, or cyber criminals. Do you really want to invite such people to gather crucial information about your business just because you don’t know when to put the bottle down?

Conclusion

Yes, this is a placative essay. Not every entrepreneur exemplifies self-management, and not every employed sales representative talks too loudly and drinks irresponsibly.

No matter which side you stand on, always keep the consequences of your actions in mind.