Credentialed professionals tend to disdain those in sales. (Having grown up in an academic family, I’m somewhat familiar with this syndrome.) Salespersons often defend their role by talking about how everyone sells something. A lot rides on the terms. I like how one old sales pro defined them.

“I have always said that everyone is in sales,” wrote motivational speaker and celebrated sales trainer Zig Ziglar. “Maybe you don’t hold the title of salesperson, but if the business you are in requires you to deal with people, you, my friend, are in sales.”

Many writers are guilty of anti-sales prejudice, but not so much those in the business-to-business (B2B) space. They get Ziglar’s expansive view of sales. Many years ago, I even heard Ziglar speak and attended to his instructions.

For three summers during college, I sold books door to door. First in San Diego, then San Francisco, then Vancouver, WA. Our week of sales training included a keynote by Ziglar, and thereafter we would listen to tapes of that talk. This month, I flew back to San Diego for a sales kickoff (SKO) event hosted by a large telecommunications services company that uses my writing. Throughout this trip, I recalled Ziglar (who died in 2012), his homespun wisdom and especially that first summer of trying to follow it.

Given that background, I know what sales people face once they leave SKO events and have to start producing. I know what it’s like to need backup. When well-designed and professionally executed, marketing and PR collateral should help sales pros, such as those I met this month, hit their ambitious goals.