Читать книгу Mega-Selling - Andrew Haynes - Страница 14

Simply following your plan doesn’t mean things will be easy – you will need the courage to stick to it. Selling turned out to be more difficult than I anticipated. I had to learn to overcome what I call “hotdoorknob syndrome” – the wave of nausea that washes over you right before knocking on a prospect’s door, or right before reaching for the phone to make a cold call. I realized that I wouldn’t be able to avoid the nausea – it always came – but I could, with courage, just ignore it. And that’s exactly what I did. Once I’d found the courage to approach prospects, I needed to find the courage to try creative approaches when conventional sales techniques failed me. Here’s a story where that courage was crucial.

The Big Pencil

Steven & Sons was a big company and I’d been trying to get their business for a couple of months. Although I hadn’t been able to convince the owners to buy any paint from me so far, I was determined to get the sale one way or another.

I used to catch a ride to my sales calls with Hans, the delivery driver for McInley & McDougall. One afternoon, he had a delivery to make to a new store that was just getting ready to open called Peter’s Paints. Steven & Sons was just around the corner, so I went with him.

Hans pulled over to the side of the road, just outside Peter’s Paints. They were still renovating the store, and the only thing that seemed to be finished was the sign. Outside, on the sidewalk, lay the remnants of the former tenant. From the look of the garbage, I guessed they had been some kind of office stationery or arts supply store. A large, four-foot-long plastic pencil caught my eye, obviously something that had been used in a display.

Hans hopped out of the van and a few moments later I heard him open the back doors. In the side mirror I saw him slide a couple of boxes out and then haul them on a cart through the maze of refuse and into the store.

While he was inside I used the few minutes of silence to meditate on my sale to Steven & Sons. They were partly owned by New England Paints and, by no coincidence, had all their paints supplied by them. Steven & Sons did a lot of work on parking lots, using New England paints, which didn’t weather the winters too well. One of our suppliers had the right paint for the job, and that’s what I’d been pitching to Steven & Sons. But Johnson, the buyer, wouldn’t budge; their relationship with New England Paints was apparently too tight to let another supplier in the door. Because I knew they needed a better paint, I didn’t want to give up. I asked Johnson if he would mind if I came by occasionally to see him. He said that would be all right and I dropped by every couple of weeks with coffee and a box of pastries. We got along well, but still he wouldn’t buy from me. I needed something to push him over the edge. I racked my brains. I’d told him all the wonders of my paint, I’d promised him a significant discount, I brought him refreshments… I needed something, but what?

I saw Hans emerge from Peter’s Paints, wheeling his cart freely behind him. In a moment he was back in the driver’s seat gunning the engine.

“Hold it, Hans,” I said, as he was pulling out.

I hopped out of the van, stepped over some garbage and grabbed what I wanted from the heap of junk.

I swung open the back doors and shoved my prize inside, sliding it on top of the boxes of paint.

Back inside the van, Hans looked over at me, his eyes quizzical. “What’re you gonna do with that giant pencil?” he asked.

“You’ll see,” I said, “just take me to Steven & Sons…”

I had a hell of a time negotiating the giant pencil through the front doors of Steven & Sons. Joanne at the front desk laughed at my struggles. “Hi, David,” she said with a grin. “I guess your hands were too full for pastries this time?”

“I never come empty handed, Joanne, you know that. They’re right here, on the other side of the pencil,” I said, nodding at the box dangling from my left pinkie. The string from the pastry box was cutting a deep groove in my flesh.

Joanne eased the box off my finger and led me in to see Johnson, the pencil pivoting wildly on my shoulder.

Johnson looked up from his desk in amazement. “What the heck do you have there, David?”

“I brought this big, giant pencil to help you sign that big, giant order for the parking-lot paint you need,” I said, and waited.

Johnson laughed, “Man, you’re never gonna give up, are you?”

“Not till you sign for an order.”

“All right,” Johnson sighed, throwing his hands in the air, “give me the order form. I’ll try your paint and see how I like it.”

I returned to the van, pencil over my shoulder, grin on my face. “What’re you so happy about?” Hans asked.

I told Hans the story and watched him roll his eyeballs. “You’re a little crazy, David, but you’ve got balls, that’s for sure. I never thought you’d sell to Steven & Sons in a million years.”

“Yeah, Hans, that’s the difference, I guess, between you and me… I knew it all along.” I didn’t mean it as an insult and Hans didn’t take it as one. We liked each other a lot. But we were very different: he was happy where he was, I wasn’t. I wanted a lot more out of life, and I was determined to get it.

The thing that I’d needed to close the sale with Steven & Sons wasn’t a big, plastic pencil – the pencil could have been any one of a number of props. What I’d needed, and found, was courage, the courage to take a risk on a creative approach.

Revisiting Strategy 2: Sticking to My Plan – Short-term Pain

Before long, I was faced with another difficult career choice, but because I had a plan to follow I was able to make the right decision.

The sale I made to Steven & Sons impressed McDougall quite a bit. He’d seen many other salespeople attempt to sell them, but nobody had come through. I would make many other valuable sales, and McInley and McDougall, who wanted to make certain I stayed with the company, eventually offered me a partnership. McInley was tighter than McDougall, but the deal was rather sweet. I remember discussing the offer with Hans during one of our deliveries.

“Wow, David, that’s amazing. These guys have never offered anyone a partnership before. Hell, I’ve been working for them longer than anybody, and I’ve barely gotten a raise.”

“Yeah, it’s a good deal all right. Too bad I’m not taking it.”

Hans hit the brakes, the van stopped suddenly and we were both thrown forward. “Pardon me,” he said incredulously. A horn bellowed from behind.

“Hans,” I said, “you better start moving, you’re holding up traffic.” Instead he pulled over to the side of the road.

“You’re kidding me, man. Nobody turns down an offer like that.”

“I do.”

Hans sat in his seat, his jaw hanging loosely. He was a big German man. He’d come over with his family when he was a child, so he didn’t have much of an accent, but whenever he got mad or emotional he reverted to his Teutonic roots. “You’re a dummkopf,” he said. “Why? It don’t make any sense.”

“I’ve got a plan, and working for McInley & McDougall isn’t in it.”

“What’s your plan?” he asked.

“Well, my dream is to become wealthy, and my plan for achieving that is to work for myself. Nobody gets rich working for somebody else. I might make a decent living working for McInley & McDougall, but I’m shooting for more than just decent.”

“But what are you going to do, exactly?”

“I’m not quite sure. I’m still figuring it out. I’m looking at a few things – the types of careers where you can work for yourself and make a lot of money.”

“And what are those?” Hans asked.

“The three that I’m exploring are real estate, securities, and insurance. You can certainly do well in the first two, but there’s a problem with them. They’re cyclical. When a depression or recession hits, real estate and securities suffer. But insurance is different. You still need insurance when the economy goes through a downturn.”

“Yeah, but who’s gonna buy insurance then? Nobody’s got money when a depression hits.” Hans said.

“Truth is, during a depression, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. And I plan to sell to the rich, anyway.”

My plan was a long-term one, and although the decision I made meant I suffered in the short term, I knew it was the right thing to do for my future.

How I Got Into the Insurance Business

After a few months of selling paint, I went out and bought a car. It wasn’t the Thunderbird I wanted. It was a large, garish green two-door Buick with a faulty exhaust system, but it would get me around at least. When I phoned to get car insurance, I also inquired about purchasing life insurance. That led to a meeting with an agent from the New York Life Insurance Company, which in turn led to a phone call from Huss Breithaupt, the sales manager. I learned later that Huss was on a recruiting campaign and was scouring the recent insurance applicants for anybody who had anything to do with sales. With “paint salesman” written on the occupation line of my application I was a sitting duck.

As I had explained to Hans, I was already looking at the insurance business as a possible career move, so the timing of Huss’s phone call couldn’t have been better. I was impressed with his demeanor over the phone, he was very proper and courteous – not at all the stereotypical salesman. Plus, he explained that my income in the insurance business would be unlimited, and that put me over the edge. He wanted to meet me for lunch the next week, and I asked him if we could make it tomorrow – I didn’t want to wait another day to get started on my new life. Huss agreed, and we met for lunch at a restaurant downtown.

When I walked in I saw a trim, dapper fellow seated by himself. I walked over to make sure it was Huss, and introduced myself.

“Cowper,” he said, sounding out my name, “that would make you Scottish?”

“And Breithaupt,” I replied, “now that’s German.”

“No, it’s Austrian,” he replied uppishly.

Back then, the Second World War was still fresh in everyone’s mind, and I replied, “Oh, yes, that’s right, in 1945 they all became Austrians.”

Huss laughed and the ice was broken. We continued to discuss what a career in the insurance business might be like for me. Huss painted a rather pleasant picture of me working for myself, setting my own hours, seeing clients of my choosing. At one point Huss said, “My top salesman at the moment only works two days a week and takes two months off in the summer… I can only imagine how much he’d make if he worked full time.”

“I’ll show you. Someday I’ll be your number-one salesman and I plan on working a full week.”

Huss smiled, “I look forward to it, David.”

Huss escorted me back to his office across the street, asked me to write an aptitude test and to call him the following evening for the results.

I called the next night, discovered I had passed and was invited back for another interview. Up till now things had been easy, but a serious snag lay waiting for me in the interview.

The Plan Begins to Pay-off – Long-term Gain

“David,” Huss said, “I need you to write down a list of 100 people.”

“People?” I asked confused. “Just a list of people? Anybody?”

“Well, people you know – personally, of course. You know, a list of people you could easily approach to sell insurance to.”

I must have gulped visibly.

“You can do that, David,” Huss said, “can’t you?”

“Sure, absolutely, of course. Who couldn’t?”

“Well, you’d be surprised, some people don’t get out much, David. I’ve had some recruits who couldn’t give me more than a dozen names.”

“I promise you a hundred names, Huss.”

“Great, David, bring them in tomorrow and we’ll get started.”

“Huss, what’s the arrangement? As far as base salary goes?” I asked.

“Well, technically, there is no base, David.”

“I see,” I said, wincing.

“You do get a hundred dollar draw against future earnings, though, and a hundred dollar training allowance every month.”

“Thanks,” I said, relieved. “And that starts… when?”

“As soon as you bring those hundred names, David.”

“Right.”

I left his office and went home, meditating on my little problem. One hundred names. I hadn’t been in the country long, and knew few people in Toronto on a personal basis. I grabbed a pencil and pad of paper and started with the few people I knew from my paint selling days, then I began listing all the names of everyone I knew who had emigrated to Canada from my hometown Edinburgh. After a half hour or so of scouring my memory I came up with one hundred names – that was the easy part. Yes, I could, in theory ask them to buy insurance, if I knew where I could find them; but thankfully Huss hadn’t asked if I knew where they were.

I returned the next day with my list, received my hundred dollar draw and hundred dollar training allowance, then was driven through an intensive six-day training course, and set loose to approach the hundred names on my list.

I remember running into Ivan, one of the six other recruits, in the parking lot shortly after our training. He was a short, round man from Poland who played the concertina. I thought that, as a fellow immigrant, he might share my dilemma.

“Ivan,” I asked, “do you really have a hundred people you can ask to buy insurance?”

“Sure, David,” he replied, “don’t you?”

“Well,” I said haltingly, “I’m about to find out, I guess, but surely you don’t really know a hundred people in Toronto. Aren’t all your friends back home.”