In February, I rounded out a 49-plus year career in sales. That’s a long time to do any one thing, and you would hope that length of time would produce some insight into the nature of the whole selling process.
Actually, all those 18,000 days did was to confirm something my dad, also a lifetime salesman, told me before I even began my career.
My dad offered the advice that to keep your sanity in that not always noble profession, you must remember one fact: It’s very hard to sell anything, but it’s not that hard to help people buy things. These two approaches may sound the same, but the difference is immense.
Think of it in this way. There are salespeople, there are good salespeople, there are great salespeople and there are peddlers, in the order of their success. Now, great salespeople sell a lot of stuff, and peddlers don’t, but people buy so much stuff from peddlers that in the end, they outperform even the best salesperson.
A salesperson makes a proposition that he tries to get the customer to buy into. A peddler determines what the customer’s needs and wants are, then tailors his approach to fit them.
Over dinner the other evening, I heard a classic example of that concept from an old friend who very recently retired as general manager of one of the world’s finest resorts.
Fred was sitting in his office one afternoon when his phone rang. On the other end was his resident manager who reported that the four-time all star pro football player staying in their most prestigious suite was sitting by the pool, drunk and in a booming voice was using language not even fit for a locker room. He was terrifying the other guests and the employees were too afraid of his 290-lb. all-muscle body to try to make him go to his room.
Upon entering the pool area, Fred verified the problem, and was in the process of trying to decide what to do next, when the unruly jock asked him what the hell he was staring at. Fred’s response was to ask him if he had been in the Army, as had Fred.
To the response of “why,” he replied he had a buddy in the service that looked just like him, but realizing he wasn’t the buddy, was trying to figure out if he might be his brother. The response was, no not the Army, but the Marine Corps.
Having broken the ice-no ex-Marine can avoid further discussing the corps when it comes up-Fred then sat down with the now subdued giant, and began to chat. It turned out that it was Valentine’s Day, and that at lunch, the guest had gotten so drunk that his new wife had left him in disgust, went back to their room and locked the door. He had no idea what to do next and so lashed out at everyone around him.
After a brief chat about the fact that men had to bend a bit to women, particularly on Valentine’s Day, Fred got him to send flowers to his room with a card of apology, then wait 30 minutes, and finally, to go to his room, and gently knock on the door and ask for admission. The next morning, Fred saw the happy couple walking hand in hand to breakfast.
When the Peddlers Hall Of Fame chooses its first inductees, I suspect that Fred will be among the enshrinees, just as was his hotel guest, who was selected to the NFL Hall Of Fame in Canton on the very first ballot.
I wonder what would have happened on that day long ago if Fred had tried to sell something. It would not have been a pretty picture.
