Sales Chump

With the untimely death of the best pitchman in history, Billy Mays, I was thinking about what made him great.  I think we can all learn from Billy Mays, and in the meantime learn about ourselves as well.

One of the reasons people bought from Mays after watching one of his infomercials was because of his passion.  If we all had passion like that for our job, our company or our product, we could sell much more.  If you find the passion, you find success.  Work doesn’t feel like work anymore.  Mays truly loved what he did and had a passion for helping people solve a need.

I would say the second reason people bought from Mays and wanted to hire him was because of his unrelenting energy.  He put the Energizer Bunny to shame.  If you watched his t.v. show Pitchmen, you would see how many takes it often took to get the right one for the infomercial.  His energy was the same each time, no matter how many it took.  He also carried that energy over to finding new products and with the people he came into contact with on a daily basis.  If we had that much energy for our jobs just think about how much more productive we could be. 

The third reason that made Mays so successful was a love of his products he sold.  He truly believed in each and every product he sold.  He would mention that he did not want to endorse it if it didn’t truly work and didn’t do what it said it did.  That is refreshing in today’s world where everyone is so eager to make a buck.  Because of this, many people would buy any product he pitched because they knew it would work and be as good as Billy Mays said it was. 

People are more likely to buy from someone that truly cares about their product or service than someone who doesn’t.  It comes through in your voice and body language.  Why should someone else care about your product or service if you don’t? 

Just think if a prospect saw you with the passion, unrelenting energy and a true love for your product as most people saw Billy Mays.  If you don’t have all of the above three, or even one component in your current job, with your company or with your product or service, leave.  Billy Mays would tell you that life is too short to do something you don’t like.

As sales people sometimes we just push forward so fast we don’t even remember the last sale we made.  When it’s a big sale it’s a little easier to remember and recollect your thoughts on how that sale made you feel.  Today I write about a big fish that I was able to reel in and it gives off that “new sale smell”.

I tend to work with larger corporations that have big name recognition.  Now this has it’s pro’s and con’s.  The sales cycle is typically a lot longer but the payoff is much greater and the name recognition that it brings to the company get’s the executives talking.

Well after several months and working with legal departments revision after revision for the contracts needed, we finally were able to seal the deal with a signature.  The selling of the product was done well before the deal was finalized.

I know it sounds cliche to say “it’s not about price” but in this instance the value was placed equally on price as well as the terms of the deal.  It wasn’t so much about the price of the product but more of the willingness for my company to sacrifice some of their terms and conditions as well as our soon to be customer’s terms and conditions. There were definitely negotiations and deal making but it was never involving the price.

I don’t look back much on my sales but ever so oftern you get that one that makes you think back to what got you the deal as you sit down and your desk still has that new sale smell.

This is my own personal success story.  This sale didn’t look like it was coming in at all even though I completed a full sales process and everything made sense.  I was getting a little flustered as it didn’t make sense to me why they weren’t signing the paperwork.  I had to take a new look on the prospect and think to myself “What am I missing? Why haven’t they signed yet?”

The answer wasn’t the standard reasoning.  They liked the product, they trusted me, it saved them money and made sense.  The reason was I hadn’t related to what was going on in their business.  I called on a Monday and my goal was to figure out what was going on with them, what was at the top of their priority list.

Come to find out they were back logged with year end reporting and had just received September reports in December.  I immediately changed my tone and my approach with this.  I showed sincere thoughts about what the person must be going through with this backed up paperwork they had to sift through.

I said “I can only imagine what your desk must look like right now.  I apologize that I’ve been trying to get you to look at something like this at a time where you have many more important things to get done first. I know you’re going to have to get this paperwork for your other reports done before the holidays before even taking a look at my paperwork so I’ll contact you after the holidays and give you a chance to get caught up”.

Low and behold, the next day I had my agreement delivered the next morning.  It was unexpected.  What caused this to happen?  The sincere approach about was important to them got my paperwork moved to the top of the list.  They realized I didn’t care just about myself that I had genuine interest in what goes on in there business and was willing to push my items to the back burner while they took care of things that were more high priority.  This in return resulted in getting attention.

Now this approach doesn’t always work and wouldnt’ be something that you should try out of the gate.  But when you’ve done everything else and they want to do business with you, sometimes taking a step back and letting them know that you aren’t desperate for their business can have the reverse effect and have them pushing you.  In this instance it worked.

As sales reps we often find ourselves very pleased when we overcome obstacles that looked impossible to surpass.  This section will be dedicated to posting success stories we find worthy of noting from not just writers on Sales Chump but readers as well.

If you have a sales success story you can send it to us at success[at]saleschump.com and we will post it.  Be sure to include the details about the story.  For example, what was the hold up, how you overcame it, why it’s different than every other sale, etc.

We look forward to sharing our successes and reading yours in the near future.