Who is the Writing Salesman?

Hello, my name is Sjors Groenendaal, and I’m The Writing Salesman. Since you’ve landed on the ”about me” page, I’ll tell you a little about myself. In 2011 I started as a retail sales rep in a Store in the scenic city of Gouda in the Netherlands. Here I found my first true love. Her name was sales. After starting our relationship quietly, we soon became inseparable.

After much commercial success, I became a manager after two years. As a manager, I received the ”Store of the year award” after one year. That is quite an achievement (considering I was competing with 100+ stores). The following year I kept myself busy with a team to get other stores at a higher sales level. That was a particularly inspiring task to perform. The biggest challenge was translating my own sales skills, and passing this on to other people. During this time, I started my first blog about retail sales called, Retail Boost. That helped my teaching enormously. And so I discovered the power of the written word.

After working in retail for eight years, I got enticed to work as an intermediary for a large recruitment company. Life is still life, and recruitment was life-draining (not my cup of tea). I didn’t get very happy scanning the x-amount of resumes. And even though I missed my first love, sales, I did start flirting with digital marketing. Considering I had quit retail and had little interest in going back, I needed a new challenge.

Fortunately for me, I knew a couple of guys who just started a sales company. Because they just started, they mainly wanted to hire freelancers. No sooner said than done. Off to the chamber of commerce, ”congratulations, you’re an entrepreneur now”. For the sales company, I worked on commission, earning more than I ever had before. Not always without struggle. Any salesperson who’s ever worked on commission loses some of their overall longevity, due to stress. I say this with a nod to the literal reader.

During my freelance sales jobs, I worked on my websites. Currently, I have two. One is a lead generation machine for the renewable industry (Solar, EV-charger, Insulation), and the other is an affiliate website.

Meanwhile, I have 5 years of experience as a digital marketer. Both in Dutch and English. I have written hundreds of blog posts, sales letters, pitches for salespeople, email copy, social media posts, and social media ads for different companies.

Salespeople are similar to marketers. Only the marketeer sells to the masses. If you want the best of both worlds, hire me.