Two salesmen, Joe and Mike, were stranded by a winter storm and took
refuge in an old farmhouse occupied by a very attractive single woman.
In the middle of the night, Joe heard Mike sneak out of bed into the
woman's room. Joe said nothing about it until nine months later when a
registered letter arrived at his office. Clutching the letter, he
walked into Mike's office.
"Do you remember the night we were stranded by that snowstorm and you
sneaked out of your room to be with that woman?" Joe asked.
"Yes," replied Mike.
"You told her you were me, didn't you?" Joe demanded.
"Yes I did," Mike said nervously. "Why do you ask?"
"Because," Joe replied, "she just died and left me the farmhouse and a fortune! Thanks buddy!"
Moral of the story. True sales professionals know that keeping busy,
making random drop by visits in the field, sometimes pays off big.
Remember sales is a contact sport. You must always leave your correct
contact information with prospects. Because you just never know,
someday, they might just have a need for your product or service. And
you wouldn't want that bluebird going to someone else now would you?
"There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact
with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts:
what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it." -
Dale Carnegie
One morning while she's making breakfast, a salesman walks up to his
wife and pinches her on the buttocks, saying, "If you firmed this up, we
could get rid of your control top pantyhose." Even though she found
this statement on the edge of intolerable, the salesman's wife keeps
silent.
The next morning, the salesman wakes his wife with a pinch on her
chest and says, "You know, if you firmed this up, we could get rid of
your bra."
This time his wife has had enough. She rolls over, grabs his
privates with a vice-like death grip and says, "You know, if you firmed
this up, we could get rid of the gardener, the postman, the pool man and
your brother."
Moral of the story. True sales professionals know that in order to
be successful in sales they have to be in constant contact with their
customers. But it has to be an appropriate type of contact and at
appropriate intervals. If you fail to consider the process from your
prospect's point of view and become too critical or too persistent, your
actions will end up opening the door for your competition. Yes, all
deals need to be continually firmed up before they are closed. But do
so, appropriately.
"The essential elements of giving are power and love - activity and
affection - and the consciousness of the race testifies that in the high
and appropriate exercise of these is a blessedness greater than any
other." - Mark Hopkins
