Upon arriving home in eager anticipation of a leisurely evening, a
salesman was met at the door by his sobbing wife. Tearfully she
explained, "It's the druggist. He insulted me terribly this morning on
the phone."
Immediately the salesman drove downtown to the druggist to demand an apology.
But before the salesman could say more than a word or two, the
druggist told him, "Now just a minute. Listen to my side of it. This
morning my alarm failed to go off, so I was late getting up. I went
without breakfast and hurried out to the car. Just then I realized I
had locked the house with both my house and car keys inside. So I had
to break a window to get my keys. Driving a little too fast to work, I
got a speeding ticket. Then about three blocks from the store I got a
flat tire. When I finally got to the store, there was a line up of
people waiting for me to open the place up. I got the store open and
started waiting on the folks in line. All this time the phone kept
ringing. Then I had to break a roll of nickels against the cash
register to make change. They spilled all over the floor. I had to get
down on my hands and knees to pick them all up. Did I mention the
phone was still ringing? When I got back to my feet, I cracked my head
on the open crash drawer, which made me stagger back against a showcase
with a bunch of perfume bottles on t and half of them hit the floor and
broke. The phone is still ringing with no let up, so while I'm bleeding
and stinking of too much perfume I finally get a chance to answer it.
It was your wife. And when she wanted to know how to use a rectal
thermometer, I simply TOLD HER!"
Moral of the story. True sales professionals understand that some
prospects and customers aren't grumpy at them, their company or the
products they're selling. They're just grumpy because they're having a
bad day. They're not saying no to you but rather, they are just saying
no to their present situation. True sales professionals know that when
situations like this occur, wait 48 hours and try again.
"I wanted to be a pharmacist. I liked the way our
local pharmacist was always dressed in a nice white coat; he looked very
calm, you'd give him money, and he'd give you something that you wanted
to buy."
- Walter Matthau
