Sales Joke of the Day (May 12) The Cat.

The salesman without hesitation had named his tomcat "Quota" because he was so hard to catch up to and impossible to completely control.  "Quota" had a will of his own.  It was springtime and "Quota" insisted on going out every night to prowl around the neighborhood and chase after female cats in heat.  And night after night, "Quota" would return battered, ears torn and his fur shredded.  Finally the salesman had had enough, and took "Quota" into the vet to be neutered.

"Quota" laid low for a week or two, so the salesman was delighted when one night the "Quota" got all dressed up in a black tie and tails, just as in the old days, and headed out the door.  The salesman was even more surprised when "Quota" was home by midnight without a spot or scratch on him.  Crowding around the cat and stroking him, the salesman asked, "How's it going Quota, you don't seem to be getting beat up any more?"

"That's for sure," responded the cat.  "But you're going to have to change my name from Quota.   You can start calling me Bus Dev because I'm no longer doing the heavy lifting of actually carrying a bag."

Moral of the story.   True sales professionals know, that as they age, and can no longer compete with the big boys and the young guns, they can always fall back to the more secure, semi-retirement career path of business development.  Where, with cat like precision, even though their sales career may be in free fall, business development folk always seem to land on their feet.

"Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs;it's about deliberately choosing to be different."    -  Michael Porter

Sales Joke of the Day (March 27) The Best Hunter.

Two salesman on a hunting trip were sitting in a tavern, arguing about who was the better hunter. They decided to bet a tall glass of beer each that they could kill and return with a killing first. 


One took up his hunting rifle and went out, and the other got into a fighter plane, found a lion, and killed it no problem. 


Forty-five minutes after the first hunter returned, the second returned. In disbelief, he asked how he did it so fast. The first hunter replied "Everyone knows that a strafed lion is the shortest distance between two pints." 


Moral of the story.  True sales professionals know that in order to succeed in sales, you need to be a hunter, not a farmer.   The shortest distance between you and your quota?  Sorry, no fighter planes to take a short cut here.  Nothing but hard work and a lot of cold calling will get the job done.


"You need to hunt something that can shoot back at you to really classify you as a hunter.  You need to understand the feeling of what it's like to go into the field and know your opposition can take you out."       -  Jesse Ventura