Monday, November 03, 2003

I’m going to pass out that list on the strong and weak points of the media, for those who didn’t get one last week…it seems to me that I ran out back here.

Alright, who needs the sign-up sheet for the oral presentation?

These are the only tests that I have up here with me…. Those are the only ones that I have with me, otherwise, there are some back in my office.

I just got off the phone with my friend, who is one of the major stockholders in Summit Brewery…actually, the biggest single stockholder in Summit Brewery. And he gave me the name of the CEO and I told him that we might want to do some things with the brewery. And a fun thing that we could do to start that relationship would be to go down there for a Saturday tour, because they do tours on Saturdays…. So informally, I think we should get a group of Networking people who want to go… We could just pick a Saturday, and….

[Would individual bars set up at the Metrodome, or would Summit, itself, set up at the Metrodome?]

No, the Metrodome…that’s a totally different deal, but Summit has stuff that they set up at certain events, and they do samples, where they sell product, or where they just pass out sales information. Mainly, they work through distributors, and the distributors sell to the liquor stores.

But Jack said that there’s a number of events where they’ll need help staffing those events. Like the Rib-Fest. When they co-sponsor Rib Fest, then they need people to hand out the bag of goodies. So…and I obviously want this guy to come to one of our breakfast meetings…our December 3^rd meeting. So, I’m working on it.

[My guy hasn’t gotten back to me yet, regarding the marketing research places out in Hopkins. There’s one out in Hopkins, but I can’t remember the name of it. But I’m trying to get them to come here. ]

I saw Jeremy this morning, and I said that I was pleased to see you guys connecting and…just keep doing what you need to do.

{When is the next test going to be?}

Wednesday is test number 3.

Steps of the Sale

Close Ratio

Alright, we’re going to look at the steps of the sale today. And our goal, here, is to develop a good or satisfactory close ratio, which means a certain number of sales visits that we initiate that we actually close. And, if we do that, hopefully we can make some good dollars. …My little door, up here, I call this my door to success. It’s a little bit corny, I realize, but you’ll remember it, that’s what counts.

And in order to make this work, if you’re going to be successful in sales, or if you’re going to be successful as a sales manager, you’ve got to be able to train people to do this…you’ve got to start out with someone who has a good foundation. And that foundation is comprised of three things: 1. people skills 2. product knowledge 3. selling skills.

People Skills

Of those three, which do you think is the most important?

{Product knowledge}

Ok…we have one vote for product knowledge. Who would vote for selling skills? Now, who would vote for people skills? Alright, those are my smart ones…very good!

Now, I could train you selling skills in one semester. Now, I’m not going to teach sales anymore. We’ve hired a new guy, Don Cassidy, to teach sales. So if you see my name associated with his sales class, it’s not true. Don Cassidy is going to be teaching our sales classes, and I will, hopefully, will be a guest speaker in this class at one point. I’ve taught sales for 27 years, and I can come in, like I did with Fred Astair Dance Studio, and in one afternoon, I can teach their employees enough about sales to make them way-better sales people.

So selling skills is probably the least important of these, right? You can pick that up pretty quickly. And, hopefully, your employer will train you how to sell their product or service. Hopefully, you will come to them with enough sales knowledge, and you’ve had a college level sales class, and maybe a college psychology class, which helps in that process, and a communications class as well…a speech or theater communication class.

But, really, what it’s all about are people skills. And people skills are hard to train. Now, what do we train at Inver Hills? We train college management skills…but, mainly, it’s people skills, right? It’s what you’re learning here. That’s why you need to take the human relations class. That’s why the supervision classes are so important. You need to be able to understand how people do things, and why people do things… Well, if you’re a sales manager or you want to have a small business, and you want to grow your company, you want to hire people that have good people skills, don’t you.

You got hired for a sales job and you did very well at it. The reason you did well is because you have good people skills. You’re not afraid, you’re not shy, you’re willing to ask, you’re able to build a relationship… So having these skills is something that, if you want to go into sales, you want to be able to talk about how you’ve prepared yourself, whether it be from college environment or work experience environment to gain these skills.

Product Knowledge

Product knowledge…either they like the product, and have some product knowledge or they don’t. And you’re not going to hire somebody to work at Audio King who is not interested in audio equipment, or who isn’t interested in high-tech. So the old debate used to be, which is more important? Product knowledge or selling skills. A lot of sales managers say that they want product knowledge, “I only want to hire people who can learn my product knowledge, and that they can communicate that to the customer.” And there is a certain amount of truth to that. But what I tell people is, “Look, if you don’t love what you’re doing, and you don’t know a lot about that, you’re going to die instantly. So it’s really people skills, and that’s what you have to look for; and those are the skills that you want to build.

Now, I could sell anything. I actually got a commitment from my friend, Jack Hirsh, today to donate money to the Frank Mitchell Memorial Scholarship. So I already have one person who’s already committed to give money. Now, how hard was that? Well, I knew that he loved my mom and dad, and that he would want to do this. It was just a question of…you know, sometimes salespeople are successful only because they put the product in front of the right person; and they are all set to buy anyway. But I know that I can sell just about anything. I’ve learned this stuff, and I can communicate fairly well.

If I wanted to sell robotics, and I had an interest in robotics, it would take me probably about a year to learn what I need to know about robotics, because I don’t know a lot about robotics. I know a little bit; I’ve been to the robotics center at the U of M, ok? I know a little bit. You can go to work for a company that sells robotic systems, and are they going to train you? Yeah. And you just have to know a certain amount. You have to be computer literate enough, so that they can work with you. When you get into an application with a client, and you can’t answer the question, you’re going to be honest and say, look I really don’t know that, but let’s call the tech guy at the factory. And you’ll hook them up, and they’ll talk, right?

It’s like you might be talking about stuff for the Web page…I don’t really get it, but it doesn’t matter, though. I just have to know enough to make sure that you’re moving things forward.

Well, when it comes to product knowledge, I like to draw a little heart, here. And you’ve got to love this stuff. So can I sell Inver Hills? My friend, Jack, said, “Rusty, you’re going to be good at this corporate begging for the college…” And why would you say that, Jack? And he said, “Because every time I have interacted with you in the last 10 to 15 years, you are always talking about the college. It’s obvious that you love that place. It’s obvious that that is in your soul.” And he said that people will pick up on that. So, yeah, it’s hard to go out and ask people to give money to the college. But when they sense that you really love this college, and you can convey to them the mission of the college, and the good work that you do, yeah, people will probably want to give. So that’s really the key here.

Now, my step-son works for Audio King, which is now called Ultimate Electronics. But he does very well there. Why? Because he’s always been an audio head. And he was taken apart my stereo equipment that I bought from Dick Shultz, Advent speakers, years back, which worked for me for years…Any way he was taking them apart and putting them back together again. Ultimately, the speakers were wrecked in the process. But he loved that stuff. He was one of the first kids at his school to have his trunk full of it…I call it stuff. But he had the boom box and big speakers, and he loved that stuff.

Actually, I didn’t get it. I mean, what’s all this stuff about? And my wife and I joked about it…it’s a guy thing. It’s not really a girl thing, but he would say, that he’s doing it to impress the girls. But they girls aren’t impressed by that. They don’t like a lot of loud stuff…it’s a guy thing. And it’s kind of a power thing, you know?

I used to say to him, “This is really stupid what you are doing, because you’ve put all of this money into these speakers, and you’re welds are put together electrically and sonically. And you have welds in your car that are going to come undone. And he’s like, no…. Well, pretty soon, stuff started falling apart in the trunk of his car…and, it’s like, yeah. But he loved that stuff.

So when they give him a piece to learn about a new product, like a plasma TV, can he take that manual home and learn that quite quickly? Yeah. And he’s interested; he’s motivated to do it. So, that’s the key, here, in terms of the foundation.

You build a good foundation to any structure. It’s kind of like the rules to the Masonic Lodge…it’s all about good building skills. If you build a good foundation to any structure, will you have a solid structure to get through the door to success?

And the higher up the door to success, the more dollars, right? This is your sales success chart. By the way, I had one like that when I was in the ad biz, and I was doing it, right, according to my goal. These were dollars that I needed to have coming in as commissionable income for this month, this month, and this year, and I was right on track. If I would have stayed in the ad business for a few more years, my goal was to be at the $100,000 level. And in our industry, we used to call it “The Salesmen’s $100,000 Club.” If you’re a distributor, and if you have 10 salesmen that are all members of the $100,000 Club, are you doing well? You’re doing very well. And if your salesmen do well, you’re going to do well. And I never got to the point where I took over the business, where I could train and motivate people. My dad didn’t want to hire new salesmen, he didn’t want the business to grow, he didn’t want more headaches. He kept it small; he only had 4 or 5 salesmen, and only 3 of us were full-time.

But if I can train people to do this, and I can get to the $100,000 Club, and then if I can train other people to do it, can I build a really nice business? Oh, absolutely. And that’s the core of all of this. So when you read the chapter on professional sales, think beyond just being a salesman, ok. Think to management and ownership, and where you go from there.

Yes, we learned earlier, the marketing circle is all about customer satisfaction, isn’t it. It’s all about selling to customers. So, if you know how to bring in clients, and if you know how to make customers happy, you can grow a business.

Pre-Approach

Alright, let’s take a look at where this all starts…it starts off with what we call the pre-approach. And the pre-approach is the homework stage. By the way, this is one of my most fun lectures that I like to do; I really enjoy this lecture.

{Why is that?}

Just because it’s something that I truly love, know, and understand…and it’s just fun….

{Is this before prospecting and qualifying?}

Yeah, this is my model. It might not be in your book. Although, the sales models, the steps for the sale, haven’t changed a whole lot over time. But I’ve come up with my own diagram. It’s kind of like when we did the economic engine…I had my own thing. That’s Mitchell’s custom material. So this is a little different, but the concept is still pretty much the same.

But the pre-approach is the homework stage, ok. And the homework is what makes the difference between a successful salesperson, a successful student, a successful doctor, a successful lawyer or engineer, or any of the professions, right? And what you want to become is true pro. By the way, people used to say, well, salesmen, they’re not professionals. Well, this is the hardest of all professions. You have to have a little bit of all the professions. You have to be able to diagnose a problem, like a doctor or an engineer. You have to be like a councilor and work with people. You have to be like a minister and understand why people do the things that they do. It takes a little bit of all the professions to really become a good salesperson.

If you do your homework, you’re likely to have more success along the way.

Relationship Selling

The first thing we have to understand, in our homework, is that what we are doing is called relationship selling. If you want a good relationship, you have to build a trust bond, don’t you. If there’s no trust bond, there’s no sale. So what’s the worst scenario of a salesperson that you can think of…the sales person that you have the least respect for? A used car salesman…I really wouldn’t want to be a used car salesman just because of that legacy that goes with that. I sold ad specialties. And that was kind of fun to be an advertising salesperson. That sounded kind of good. Being a used car salesman might not sound as good.

Why is it that they have a bad reputation?

{Because they’re cheap…. But I really don’t think they are that bad.}

No…it’s not that they intentionally want to sell you something that is a problem. But when you’re buying a used car, you’re buying a car that is used, right? And there’s only a certain amount of life left in it, and it’s going to have problems; it’s a mechanical thing, so it’s going to have problems, right? And, sometimes, they are not always honest, and they don’t always tell you exactly what is going on. And we talked about this just this weekend. In your car, right now, if you flip down the mirror, and if you have a fairly new car with an airbag, it will tell you that those airbags have to be replaced every 5 years.

{Are you serious?}

Yeah, they have to be replaced every 5 years. I looked at it, and in my wife’s Toyota, and then I looked at it in my Explorer, and it says the same thing. Now, is a used car salesman going to tell you that you’re buying a car that’s 4 and a half years old, with these many miles, and that the first thing you’re going to have to do is replace the airbags? No, he’s not going to tell you that.

{It’s really none of their business….}

Oh, but it is. And that’s where the trust/bond falls apart. If you’re buying a new car, they should be telling you what’s going on, what you’re going to have to, how this works.

When I bought my Explorer, my salesman said, “You know, you really ought to buy the extended warranty. This car has a lot of parts and pieces that are upgraded. And some of those things can go wrong. If you buy the extended warranty, it’s covered.” Unfortunately, he didn’t tell me that every 30 to 50 or 60 thousand miles, I have to spend between $300 and $600 to keep that warranty active and alive. If you don’t do the required maintenance at the Ford garage, you’re warranty is…. Now, was that just a slight oversight? I don’t know… But the respect that I have for that salesperson dropped down a notch, didn’t it, when I realized that. And, maybe, that’s really not true; maybe, that’s just my Ford garage telling me that, and maybe it’s really not true. And I don’t know who to believe at this point.

{Didn’t you read the fine-print?}

Well, who reads the fine-print? That’s the problem. We don’t look in the owner’s manual. Did you know that in your owner’s manual that it says that if you kick your seat back, like you’re wanting to take a nap, that it’s very dangerous… If you have a shoulder mounted seatbelt that hooks up to the column on the side of the door, where most of them are… Some of them are mounted on the seat. And on those cars, it’s ok, because as you lay back, the seatbelt stays with you, doesn’t it. But if you lay back, and the seatbelt is up here, if you have an accident, you will, if you have an accident, decapitate yourself. Your head will go out the window. It’s happened. There’s a TV show just a while back, where a lady said, “Why didn’t the Ford company tell us that?” Well, it’s in your owner’s manual….

So, sometimes, it’s our past work that reflects on what we’re doing. Is it hard to be a good salesperson and inform someone about everything? I mean, you are overwhelmed when you buy a new car. You can’t learn all of the things you are supposed to learn, so they can’t tell you everything.

Problem-Solving Selling

But in today’s selling, in modern selling today, if you will, it’s all about trust/bond, it’s all about building trust, it’s all about relationship selling. Actually, the term that I like is problem solving selling. Because what you are doing for that customer is rooting out a problem, finding out what’s going on. Here’s a problem…and then you offer the solution to that problem, aren’t you.

{Like you said about problem solving like with the cars…my mom just a bought a Mercedes Benz. And they have to take you through a series of classes. Did you know that?}

See, I really like that.

{And they let you know everything…}

I really like that, yeah. And it takes a certain amount of time but, then, you’re an educated consumer. That’s a classy company that does that. Actually, I have done that, once before, when I bought a Dodge minivan. And minivans were kind of new at the time, and people didn’t really know how to get the seats in and out, and all kinds of…. And it had a lot of features, and so they had a class. You didn’t have to attend, but they strongly encouraged you to go. And I knew more about that car than any other car I had owned for years. It was a good thing I did go. That’s an example of good… And by the way, does that company have a good reputation? Oh yeah, partly because they do things like that.

Problem-Solving Selling

Well, anyway, we are in the problem solving business. So salespersons need to see themselves as fixers. Now, you may not need my fix. But if you have a need for my fix, then we’re going to build a relationship, and I’m going to take care of you; and I’m going to make sure that you get the benefits that I promised, right? And if you get those benefits, and if you’re happy, well then we’ll have a long-term relationship. And so this thing in today’s business world is all about long-term successful relationships. In the old days, they used to stress, just going out door to door, and sell your product.

You’ve all heard the thing about Barnum and Bailey, what did they say? A sucker was born every minute… You’d go there and see the freak show, and most of it was just a bunch of lies. Like my secretary Michel…her husband who does the Berry Land. They just got done with their most successful season ever with their haunted house. And someday our club should go for that, in the fall, as a group. But, anyway, he bought a thing off of the Internet called the Missing Link. And I used see it at the fair when I was a kid. And, supposedly, it’s this thing in a jar, and it’s the missing link between apes and humans. Well, really, it’s just embryo of a goat or a cow, or something that happened to have had black skin. And it’s really nothing other than… It probably came from some college professor’s collection, right?

But back in those days, the idea was, as long as there will always be new customers, we can always sell. It doesn’t matter whether they get what they are supposed to get. The pot and pan guy would come show you stuff, and, wow, it’s Teflon coated…it didn’t matter that in six months all the coating would be scratched off. He didn’t really care, he just wanted to sell his pots and pans. He’s moving on to new suckers.

Well, the problem is, today, with communications the way it is, stuff sticks to you a lot longer. So you want to make sure that you’re selling quality stuff and that you are doing this properly.

The bottom line is that, today, to be a good professional in a good organization, it takes a lot of work and it’s something to be very proud of. And, by the way, you can make more money that way. Can you make more money in sales than the CEO of your company? If it’s a smart company that sets it up so that you’re on a commissioned sales basis, yeah. Some companies, like Deluxe, don’t pay commission…I don’t know about today, but in the old days they didn’t pay a commission. They paid a bonus on company profits and productivity for every employee. And their sales people were expected to hit certain quotas. But, essentially, they were more concerned about the relationship with your bank customers. And if you have a good relationship with your 25 accounts, and they are happy, Deluxe will win long-term, right? So they didn’t want you ignoring that relationship. They wanted you to service the account. Every company has a different philosophy. If you ever bought a Kirby vacuum…what’s their philosophy?

{I worked there…}

You worked there…screw the customer, isn’t it?

{Oh, yeah…}

Screw the customer… It’s a good product. I used to work with a Kirby vacuum at the Edina Towers, and it would last forever. You couldn’t kill it. It was a great product. But their idea it to get the highest amount of money from what ever sucker is out there, and if they are at all smart, they’ll beg you down, and ultimately, yeah, they’ll sell you a Kirby at no profit just to make a sale that day. I think that’s abusive.

So what we want, here, is non-manipulative selling. So I use Kirby as an example of what not to do. So I’m saying you might be learning some things about sales, and you might be paying your college tuition, which is probably a good thing, but don’t let that taint how it really is in the real world. Real sales jobs are non-manipulative, they are trust-building, they are problem-solving, etc.

Prospecting

Ok, once we have done that, now we can do our prospecting. Once we’ve done our homework, then we can move on to our prospecting. And the prospecting is all about making lists, and qualifying. Now, in order to do good prospecting, I have to have done my homework first. So when I started calling on funeral homes, I learned how funeral parlors work; I learned how funeral directors think; I learned what materials they have available to them, and what they can and cannot buy from their standard sources of supply. In doing that, what I found out is that virtually all funeral homes across America buy almost all of their merchandise from one vendor.

{Who is it?}

I haven’t a clue anymore. I’ve completely forgotten. But it would be a good company to work for, wouldn’t it? Yeah… I was surprised to find that they could buy their little flags that go on the cars; they could buy their embalming fluid from them; they could by their carpet that says, ________ from them. Well, those were some of the things I was selling: there invitations, their thank-yous, the little books that you write your stuff in… They bought all of that from them, that one company.

And that one company sells their merchandise to virtually every funeral home in America, including the make-up. So what am I going to sell to them? One of our sales reps came in and said, “Rusty, I heard this from another guy… if you want to get started in the ad specialty industry, you got to call on these funeral homes. No one else wants to call on them. Every body was calling on the banks.” And I said, “Yeah, I can’t get into any of the banks.” And he said, “Well, yeah, because you already have a salesman who sells to all the banks. There’s only a few left. And then every body else is trying to sell to those banks.” But no one was calling on the funeral homes. And I’m like, “Oh, really, that’s cool…”

So I started calling on them. Well, is that a fun environment to be in? First of all, if you’re going to go there, you can’t wear your flamboyant suit, you have to wear gray or dark…you have to kind of fit in. And it was like, gee, I hate this, I feel like I’m dressed for a funeral. So I told my dad that it was too painful, I can’t do that. And he said, “Well, that’s ok. There’s other clients to call on…” And I’d focus on County Seat, and Super Value, and some other accounts. Then the same rep came back and said, “Now, you’re calling on the funeral homes, right?” And said, “No, I tried it, but I really didn’t like it.” And he said, “That’s why you got to try harder!” And I’m like, “Well, what do I sell them?” And he goes, “Anything for the church.” And I’m like, “For the church?” And he says, “Yeah, for the church ladies.” And I said, “What do you mean, ‘for the church ladies’?” And he says, “No, no, no that’s what they buy. They buy ad specialties stuff. They can’t put adds in the church, can they? But they can give stuff away to the church people with their ad on it.” So churches want people to come in and volunteer their time, and they need to have some free stuff, so when you come and volunteer for the business committee for the church to handle all the church’s money problems, you get a nice little calculator and a nice little pocket book. Well, the church isn’t going to pay for that. But such and such a funeral home will with their ad on it, right?

So the minister says, “Hey, for my finance committee, I need 9 of them calculators and some of those notebooks.” Well, ok. Then finally, I got it. Once I understood how it worked, then I could play the game. Ultimately, I ended up selling to every funeral home in the metro area. And I had merchandise in every single one of them. Now, unfortunately, along the way a lot of them had gotten bought up by some of the big players. And there are a lot less funeral home directors, now, than what their used to be. But, even still, if I’m selling to Welander and Quist, and if they are the biggest with 18 chapels, they need 18 times what ever I have to sell, right?

Well, that’s the homework stage. And as I kind of thought more about this, I thought, well, ok, there’s one guy who used to be at Mankato grad, and I know who he is. And he went through the program in Mankato with me in business. And then I think he wanted to go into mortuary science at the university. And my roommate’s friend had gone through the mortuary science program at the university. So I asked him is she remembered this guy, and she did. So I called on him, and he was my age…we had been to Mankato together, he’d been through the mortuary science program, and he started telling me a little bit about how funeral homes worked. And, pretty soon, I’m knowing more about the business.

Well, then my dad had a friend who owned a funeral home in Iowa. And he got to attend an Air Stream rally there. And, actually, it was a Halloween weekend rally. And he came back to say that he had so much fun. They had people popping in and out of the coffins and all of their employees. And they ran you through a deal, where you’d be blindfolded and there might have been something like peeled grapes that they would tell you are a bowel filled with eyes. And there might have been some cold macaroni that they would say are brains. But, they had a great time. People slept in the funeral home on Halloween night. It was like, wow… Anyway, this guy in Iowa had this huge piece of property that he bought that was carved out of a cornfield. So he had this huge parking lot. And imagine they are all related down there in Iowa, so when somebody dies, there’s a lot of people coming to the funeral. And farmers can get away and do stuff like that, right?

Anyway, he’s got this great place for the Air Stream convention. So they brought in all of these Air Stream trailers, and everyone just had a great time. Well all of a sudden I began to realize that funeral directors have to have a sense of humor in order to do this business. It’s not always so serious, and I had always seen the serious side, right? So my dad says to call this guy. And so I called him, and he said, yeah, I’ll give you some tips. When you’re calling on funeral directors, don’t ever do business in their office, because they’ll always be interrupted, and it’s a somber atmosphere; get them out of their environment. But they will usually not go far. They will all have a cell phone with them. And actually back then it was before the days of cell phones, so they had car phones. But don’t get them too far, because they need to come back. If they get a call, then they have to hustle back. When somebody dies, they have to get right on it and right away. So he said to take them to a restaurant, maybe a block away, or take them in your car. So that’s what I started doing. And I’d tell them a few jokes, and I’d get them to lighten up, and then I’d show them my stuff. And I’d go, “Hey, I got this thing for the minister that magnifies the Bible, because ministers are getting old and they can’t see as well, and it’s got your copy on there.” And so they would buy those.

And then they would Styrofoam cups…have you ever been to a church service and have a Styrofoam cup that had the name of a funeral home on it? Yeah. That’s a major expense for the church to buy those Styrofoam cups. Well, we sold them by the billions! We sold lots of Styrofoam cups that said County Seat, Cennex, Super Value on it. Why not have them for the funeral homes, and they’d give them to the church. How many do you need this month, sir?

Well, that was a great thing. Anyway, I sold bunches of those. Well, after a while, I had about 15 items that I could sell to funeral homes. Ultimately, I wanted to put that into a mailing piece, buy a mailing machine, and sell those all over the country. So I had some good programs. Later on, I did the same thing for realtors. When you figure out what they are all about, you can make that work.

So that homework stage is critical. Once you do that, then you can start to prospect. Well, how do you make a list of all the funeral homes in the Twin Cities? Do you buy a list? No, funeral homes are all going to advertise in the “Yellow Pages,” aren’t they. So all you have to do is go to the “Yellow Pages,” and write down all the names and the addresses and phone numbers, and then call and find out is your business independent or are you part of a chain or group? Well, once you find out who the key players are, then you have your prospect list, right? Then I have to qualify. How many of these are ready, willing, and able to buy. That’s the key thing…are they ready, willing, and able to buy. Are you talking to Mr. or Mrs. right? So if I’m talking to you, and you are the receptionist, you can’t say yes to my product. But if I’m talking to him, and he’s the owner, he can say yes. Or, maybe it’s the owner’s wife, who handles all the promotion stuff. So you have to know who’s the right person. So that’s that qualifying stage.

Approach

Ok, once we’ve qualified, and we know that we have the right person, then we can move in to the approach. And the approach is all about the first impression.

By the way, I bought a house a while back. And I got invited to a party at the man’s house who built the house for us. And I said to him, “You know Jim, you didn’t qualify me, and I’m kind of curious about this. We spent some serious money, and you never qualified us.” And he said, “Oh contraire…” And I said, “No, I can specifically remember, we came in, we showed you our blue prints from another buyer, which meant we were serious, which I can appreciate, but…” And he goes, “Well, yeah, that meant you were serious, so how much more did I need to do?” And I said, “Well, I don’t think you did anything more…” And he said, “Oh, yeah, I did…” And I said, “So, tell me, first, you got us a beer, then we talked about the plans, and then we talked about the price, and we ultimately bought the house. And buy the way, when you called with your bid, we were on our out to give the business to somebody else. And you called at the exact, right minute. I mean you made it by seconds. And when we heard your price, we said, ‘well, ok, we’re going to go and meet this other man, but we can’t say yes today, because we have to have a final meeting with you.” He said, “So there was a little luck involved with my getting the sale.” And I said yeah. But he want on to say, “But I did qualify you. Remember when I brought you out to the kitchen and got you a beer? Well, then I sat you down, you drank the beer, and my while my wife was going over the plans with your wife, where did I go?” And I said, “I don’t know.” He then said, “Well, I went out and I wrote down your license number from your car. And I also took a look at the kind of vehicle you had, and then I went from there.” And he went on to say, “And did I ask you to write out a check for $200 for the next set of drawings?” because they were going to take the drawings and make some improvements. And I said, “Well, yeah, you did…” And he says, “Well, what do you think I did with your check number? I got your credit rating.” He says, “Now, I’ve got a report from the Department of Motor Vehicles, and I have your credit rating, and he says, “I know a lot about you. Did we call your employers? You wouldn’t know, but we called your employers, and, yeah, we asked from your credit rating who you worked for.” Now, I don’t know, if today, if that is even legal, but back then, he knew that my wife worked for Fairview Hospitals, at the time, and that I worked for the State of Minnesota. Now, they can’t say a lot, but they can say that this person is gainfully employed and has been here for this amount of time.

So do you think he know that I was a good credit risk? Did he know that I could buy a house of that value? Yeah, he did. Now, he didn’t find out what our bank account totals were. But he really did do some homework didn’t he.

{But is it really a good idea to have your credit checked when you are buying a house? Because you’re points go down, right?}

What?

{Your points go down whenever they look at your credit…}

What are you talking about?

{Every time they print out your credit report, your credit points go down.}

No…I can’t control who looks at my credit report…

{Not you, but when ever they do…}

{It’s like when ever you apply for a credit card or a loan…}

{Yeah, then your credit points go down, and it shows up on your credit report…}

Well, then, that’s going a big problem, because every insurance company in America is now looking at your credit rating before they sell you insurance, where your rate is based on your credit rating. I jokingly refer to this as the idiot tax. But that’s what insurance companies are going to be doing. Anyway, that doesn’t make any sense; that’s an urban myth. It doesn’t make any sense to me at all.

{Rusty, whether you are buying a house…your point, you know, like your credit points…}

Your mortgage banker…

{Yeah, you have these points, and it goes down every time you go to look at it.}

Who would pay points on a mortgage, not me…

[I don’t think he’s talking about mortgage points…]

{It’s not paying points…}

[He must be talking about being assigned a certain number of points on your credit rating, and I think that he’s saying that every time they check into your credit rating that you must lose some of them….]

It doesn’t make any sense to me at all. I don’t have a clue as to what you’re talking about. And it’s completely off the subject, so let’s drop it.

The bottom line is that this man knew what we were doing. And he checked us out, and he knew that we could afford that house or not afford that house. So do you have to qualify people? Yeah. You don’t want to be spending or wasting time with people who can’t buy the product.

Now, if I go in to buy a Corvette…can I buy a Corvette? Sure, I can afford to buy a Corvette. Is that salesperson going to spend some time with me? Yeah. What if my step-son comes in and says he wants to buy a Corvette? It might be that he just inherited some money and that he can afford to buy a Corvette, or it might be that he’s just dreaming and he’ll never be able to buy a Corvette. So that’s one of the hard things that you have to do. You have to make a decision. I worked at Kinney Shoes when a man came in and bought hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of product. The sales manager wouldn’t even look at him, because he was all dirty. As it turned out, I did have to vacuum up after they guy; he did leave a mess on the floor. But he bought a bunch of product from me. It turns out, his name was Headburg, or something, and he owned the gravel pit behind Southdale, where my store was. He had made a fortune selling the land to the Dayton family where Southdale was built. He was buying shoes for his daughter’s wedding, and he ended up buying work boots and…. So, you can’t necessarily make a rush judgment about someone and their credit worthiness, etc., etc.

By the way, I never paid, in my whole life, for a credit check. We, as members of our bank, had a good relationship with our bank, and we did all of their advertising, and they got the discount that they we would have normally gotten as an agency. So they would do free credit reports for us. I didn’t have pay. But every client that I had a question about, I had a credit report run on them. It doesn’t hurt that client one bit.

Anyway, what’s the approach about? It’s about first impressions. So, hi, I’m Rusty Mitchell, and you’re?

{Amy}

Amy…nice to meet you Amy. Boys and girls all shake hands, don’t they? Now, in the Arab world, what do we do when we meet? You’ve been there, right?

{Well, it’s kind of complicated…}

Well, explain…

{Well, it depends on how close you are. If you’re real close, you might shake hands or hug each other while kissing each other’s cheeks. }

They kiss each other’s cheeks. By the way, with the Asian bow, how ever low you go with your bow indicates who much respect you are giving that person. But in the Arab world, they don’t like to shake hands. Now, it’s a western custom to shake hands. We always shake hands in the west, right. But, there, that’s not what they are used to. In the Arab world they take their right hand and wipe their but with it, and then they wash it. The right hand is often a dirty thing.

So there’s some custom that goes along with that. I learned a lot about that this summer when we were in Turkey. It was really interesting. What do they do? They give each other, when they know each other this little kiss thing, and they also do this [take a bow], and that shows respect and that’s a… So in different cultures, it’s a little different. But did you notice that I had made eye contact? Is it critical to have eye contact? Yeah, and you can’t build a trust/bond unless you have that eye contact. You absolutely have to have that eye contact.

Now, would it be good if, along the way, in a presentation that I repeated your name a couple of times? Yeah, that pulls you in, that shows that you know who they are, and that you have interest, and away you go.

Now, the statement goes that you only have one chance to make a first impression. So you want to be dressed appropriately and properly for the occasion, and you want to be prepared, which all goes back to the homework, again, doesn’t it. See how critical this homework thing becomes? So if I’m going to call you on the phone to make a an appointment, I need to know how to pronounce your name, spell your name, what your title is… Do I want to call the receptionist first and get that? Yeah, get the extension number… Might the receptionist tell me a little bit about your background, like how long you have been there, whether you’re married, any children, etc., etc. And receptionists are trained to give out a certain amount of information to vendors.

So the more you know about that client, the better off you are. Now, the first time that we contact each other might be on the phone, so “Hi, I’m Rusty Mitchell. Mr. Smith…nice to meet you. Yeah, I sell advertising specialties, and I’d like about 20 minutes of your time to help improve your productivity, and to make you guys some more money, to make your relationships with your salespeople more effective. I need 20 minutes of your time. Will Tuesday work, or would Wednesday work for you?”

[Oh, give them a choice…]

Give them a choice—a forced choice, yeah. So you want to be a little pushy. You’re in charge; you’re in control, and the salesperson never wants to give up control. It’s like the teacher who lets all the students do the talking. You don’t want to do that…although, you need some good interaction now and then.

In a sales presentation, you want to make sure that you’re controlling the flow and the time, but you want that two-way communication, you want that dialogue. So it’s a very…. I mean, it’s like you’re walking a tightrope. It’s a very dicey thing. Once I’ve got that appointment, then I will confirm the appointment, we’ll meet, we’ll find out some things, and away we go.

I want to find out what your personality type is. And on a day after this next test, we’ll look at a Wilson’s Personality Profiles, which ties into management as well as sales. But you are either a driver, an expressive, an amiable, or an analytical. You will fall into either of those 4 categories, ok? So I need to know…are you going to be fast-paced or slow-paced. Are you deliberate, do you have a hard time making decisions, or an easy time making decisions? Initially, I need to make a few assumptions based on the tips and the clues I see from your office, your home, or your car.

When I asked Jim if he qualified me, he said, “Not only did I get your driver’s license number, I looked at your car, I looking into the car as best I could from my living room to see if it was neat, organized, was it full of junk…” And so there are little tips that give things away in terms of where people are at.

So you want to make a good impression, you want to match yourself up with those people. To be a good salesperson, you have to be something like a chameleon. Now what’s special about a chameleon?

{They can change colors}

They change colors based on their surroundings, right? So if you’re a driver, I’m not going to change my personality, but I want to move a little bit into your camp, so that we feel more comfortable.

And it’s that comfort zone….

…Ok, let’s do one more handshake, here. Now, what if I were to do this where we clasp hands and where you turn your hand down…what does that mean?

{It means that you are better than…}

Dominant. And what if he were to turn my hand this way? Well, that means that he’s going to be dominant, right? I went to a whole class just on how to shake hands. By the way, in that class they said, if you’re a salesperson, you must wash your hands after each time that you shake someone’s hand. And do people look at your nails? If your nails are neat and trimmed, and if a guy were to look at my nails and notices, “Hey, you chew your nails… That’s not a good sign, Mitchell.” Because people are worried that if you don’t take care of yourself, you might not wash your hands after you go to the bathroom. And so if you chew your nails, that indicates a certain lower level of personal grooming. At the time, I had a beard, and he said, “Get rid of the beard…” And I said, “But I like the beard, it helps me at County Seat.” And he said, “Yeah, it might help you with one account, but a lot of the people you’re calling on are older, middle class, and the beard is a problem.” Kids today with earrings and all of this stuff hanging off their face, it that a good thing or a bad thing?

{Bad thing…}

Well, in the retail world, it might actually work for you, if you’re working at the Dry Ice Store at the Mall of America, it might. But if you’re out there selling Xerox…. By the way, if you work for Gillette, who sells razor blades, they have a policy about facial hair. How can they do that in today’s world of diversity? Well, that’s their product line, and you could have a mustache, and you could have longer sideburns, you can have a mustache and a goatee, but there are certain policies about what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable grooming. Why? Because they are in the grooming business. It does make a certain amount of sense.

Anyway, those first impressions are critical. You only have one chance to make a good first impression. By the way, when I started in the ad business, I had a problem, I was too bright, too young, too well-educated. How can that be a problem?

{The first impression of you being a kid?}

Yeah, here I am this young college kid, and here is this older man that I called on who never went to college. My dad never went to college. He built his business by sweat and hard work. Well, who this little college pup, who thinks he’s so damned smart? So I had to learn to be a lot more humble. And I didn’t parade around. Pretty soon, I took my college ring off, and didn’t parade around the fact that I was a college graduate. By the way, I did learn, in the City of St. Paul, that there is a club of St. Thomas graduates. I did not go to St. Thomas, I went to Mankato. I was an outsider. Whereas, in Minneapolis, it was more U of M… but St. Paul and St. Thomas were very well connected. I found out that there is a little brotherhood going on. Duluth is very closed. You want to sell to people in Duluth? My dad went to an Air Stream rally up there, and he found out that it’s a very closed community. So there’s a certain amount of that that goes on, and you need to be aware of some of those things. And it’s rather intriguing.

In the approach stage, you’re going to ask some questions. What kinds of questions are you going to ask?

{Get to know what kind of hobbies they like…}

Ok, get to know what their interests are, what their hobbies are, what they like to do…. When I had you fill out the card at the beginning of the semester, did I ask you what you liked to do for fun? Yeah, I’m trying to build a relationship, aren’t I? I want to get to know you. Now, in my case, I’m trying to deal with 30 people at a time, it’s not a one-on-one relationship like you have in sales. But, yeah, you’re going to ask questions about what they like to do, where they go, what they’re interested in. The more you know about them, the better off you are. Buy the way, the more you can have done before you talk to them, the better.

So if I’m going to call this CEO of the brewery, should I get a hold of their annual report?

[Oh, yeah…]

Oh, yeah. And by the way, I can go to the library and get a clippings file. Everything that has been in the paper about that company for the past 10 years, I can get. So the more you know about them, the more likely you are to be able to make a connection. But, yeah, you’re asking questions and you are making observations.

Some of those questions are going to relate specifically to the problem. What do you do; what does your department do; etc., etc. So you’re going to lead them along a certain path, aren’t you. Because you ultimately want to get to, here’s the problem that you have, and here’s our solution for that problem, sign on the dotted line, we’ll make that problem go away.

So the questions, and the quality of those questions, and how comfortable all of this is, is critical. What’s the next step?

[Demonstrate…]

Ok, we do our approach, we have the prospecting, we have the pre-approach. So now we’re going to do a demo.

{That goes into building a rapport…}

Yes, building rapport…exactly, building rapport. And when we do the demo, what’s the big thing, here?

{Product knowledge…}

Benefits…this is where the product knowledge comes in, exactly. This is the point at which we do what I call show and tell. My dad used to call it, “show and sell.” But this is where we get the client involved with the product. And we let them see the benefits. This is what this what this product or service will do for you; this is how it’s going to help you out.

In this process, we want to have the client use all senses. We want to get them involved. By the way, we also want to be keeping a list of agreement points. So we list the agreements…what do we agree works for them. Yeah, you like this, yeah, you like that feature, you like that good benefit. This would be good for your company; this would be good for wife; this would be good for your employees. You’re selling the vacuum…yeah, it would be good for cleaning the carpet, it would be good for cleaning the drapes, your husband can use it in his shop…. Now, when you go to close, later on, you can just go back and review what they already agreed to, those positive things, right? And that makes the close a lot easier.

When we get ‘involved,’ and when I say ‘use all senses,’ that means sight, sound, smell… If I’m a good salesman, I’m not going to just get you a catalog, I’m going to let you touch, feel, and play with the product, right. Now, sometimes you can’t. If I’m selling robotics I can’t bring in a robot, but I can bring in a video, and show you what we’ve built, and show them in action. And I can talk about how we’ve solved a problem for Ford, or saved money for Ford.

By the way, my favorite robot, that was being developed for Ford, is the one that puts the batteries in and out. So that’s a very repetitive labor problem and potential back problem for an employee. You take the battery off the stand, you’ve got a little handle, you put the clips on it, you pick it up, you have to reach in and drop it into the case, then clamp the case down, right? That’s a problem. A robot, however, will do that much better. Then all the person has to do is to do a little finish work, and it’s done. Can you sell a robot to do that? Yeah, because how much does it cost you for their group health policy; how much does it cost you for their x-rays and all the rest? Yeah… So you want to get clients involved.

Now, how many of you have bought a car and have done a test drive? Actually, right now, the smart dealers are begging you to take the car home.

[Yeah, for 24 hours…]

Yeah, to keep it over night. That’s really smart. When I was looking at SUVs, the guy said, I not only want you to take the car home over night, I don’t want you to bring it back until Monday. And I don’t want you to bring it back unless it’s dirty. And I said, “You’ve got to be kidding me; that’s the opposite of a Ford ad…” But he had said to bring it back dirty. He said, “I want you to work this vehicle. I want you to know that this is a Land Rover.”

{Did you buy the Land Rover?}

I couldn’t afford the Land Rover. I sure had fun driving it, though. And my ultimate test was that I took it to a hill that was full of snow and wet grass, one that I had fallen on my ass with my dogs before, so I new it was slippery and at a pretty good angle. And I parked the vehicle, and I wanted to see if it would hold, and it did. And then I let the vehicle slide backwards, and very slowly I applied the gas, and it brought me up to the top of the hill. It automatically geared itself and brought traction to the right wheel. I couldn’t put on the gas fast enough to make it spin. The vehicle was smarter than I was. I got up to the top of the hill, and I was impressed, “This is one cool vehicle; this is worth the money.” And it had all the other amenities; it had all the seat warmers and all the other stuff. The problem was that he wanted $80,000 for a used vehicle. It was actually old technology. So I ended up buying a Ford Explorer, which does the same thing with newer technology. My Explorer passed the exact same test. But the point is to get you involved.

Did I bring my two kennels into the dealership? I got two dogs, if I can’t get both kennels into the back and space for my guns, I don’t want this vehicle. The Isuzu, I ruled out immediately, because I couldn’t put two kennels in. Then I found out, it has the spare tire mounted on the back. If you back into anything…and are you likely to back into something stuff in the woods? Yeah, but you’ll bash-out your back window. And I’m saying to the guy, “Well, isn’t that a problem?” And he goes, “No, no, no, you don’t want a vehicle like the Ford with that’s got the spare tire underneath, because when you are typically going to have a problem and you need to change your tire, when it’s underneath, how do you get it out of there?” I’m like, “Well, I guess you have to jack it up…” And he says, “Well, that’s the problem.”

Well once I saw, on TV, how the rear mounted tire on the Isuzu explodes your window and costs $600 to replace that back window, it’s like, wait a minute, that’s a problem. Maybe the benefit that they are saying, by this is easy to get at, isn’t such a benefit after all.

{Wouldn’t you have to jack the car up to get at the spare tire anyways?}

Well, that’s just it. I had a flat tire when I was up at Ely. Some idiot put nails under my car, because I left my dogs in the car and they were barking, and I was in front of his house, and he was pissed at me. And I shouldn’t have been there during the Blueberry Festival, and people were parking all around his house. And I know he did it, because he was working on a construction project, and the same color nail that was on the end of the nail was the same ones that he was using on the trim of his house. So I know it was him; I know he did it on purpose, because I had…ultimately, before the weekend was over, I had 3 flat tires. Now, what are the odds of my getting 3 flat tires, all of which having the same colored nail? …Probably pretty slim. But I had ended up…first I had to jack the vehicle up, and it wasn’t that hard to get it out, you had to jack it up anyway. Actually, now that I think of it from a broader perspective, where Ford has it, is that they give you more protection for your gas tank. And you don’t want your gas tank to hit a rock, spark, and explode. Some of the other vehicles that I looked at had, you had to buy extra plate for that.

Anyway, you get involved. When I bought a used car, one time, the salesman took me out. he was a good salesman. Later on, I told him that I was going to tell my students this story. And he says, “Please do!” He sells cars on University Avenue. Ok, I was buying an MG. And I had no intention of buying an MG. I was driving down the street one day; I was going to see some students at a high school. And out of the corner of my eye, I saw this beautiful maroon MG with a black top. And it was sitting on the lot, and I thought, “God, I love that color combination…I got to go and look at that car…” I was single at the time; I had had an experience with a previous date, who said, “You ought to be driving an MG or something cool like that. Why you have this Jeep… It’s too high to get into.” So, she, kind of, planted a seed in the back of my mind. Well, I was a young bachelor guy, I could do that…. So I see this car, and I go and look at it, and the guy takes me out for a test drive. Not in that car, however, because that car had a rip in the seat, the back window was all scratched and hard to see out of. The one tire, not on the street side, but on the other side was flat, which you couldn’t see as you drive by. But he said, “You know, that’s a beautiful car; and that’s probably the best deal I have on the lot. And, sir, if you buy that car, we’ll fix it up, we’ll repair every thing, and you’ll love this car; it will even have that new car smell…” Which I found out later on to be a spray in the cleaning stuff that they use.

But he did, he fixed it all. But he took me out in a 3 year old car. And we drove it. And what did we do…he took me out to cross town and, what was the intersection, there, anyway there’s a park there. But anyway, there was this cloverleaf, and he took me on the cloverleaf, and he said, “Ok, now, punch it…” So I go around, while he’s saying, “I’ll look for cops…” And we had the top down, of course. And he says, “No, no, no, you’ve got a four wheel drift all the way around. Or, at least for one-third of the corner. I want you to accelerate into the turn; you need to feel how this car really feels.” So pretty soon…I mean, we must have gone around 15 or 18 times. I’m sure if there had been a helicopter overhead, I’m sure we would have been nailed. But we has so much fun.

Did he have me hooked when that was done? He said, “How do you like it?” And I said, “It feels like when I used to have a go cart when I was a little kid.” It’s low to the ground, it goes fast…you know, you’re only going 50, but you feel like your going 150. The transmission was a 5-speed; it was like bomb-bomb-bomb-bomb—just like butter! And, wow! this guy is going to… Well, did he do a good job in getting me involved with that product? Yeah, but he did something even better, and he was so smart, he took me by the local high school. The first thing we did when we got into the car. This is the high school that I had just come from. We went by the high school, but we didn’t go by the front door, we went to the back door. Who’s standing outside the backdoor? A bunch of girls smoking cigarettes, right? They are always there… The more I thought about it, the more I thought, this guy is really sharp.

Well, he had asked me a few questions in this probing stage. He had found out that I was a college professor; he found out that I was single; he found out that I was willing to pay cash for a car. And it was like, he knew why I was there, he knew what this was all about, he wants a car that he can, maybe, pick-up a girl with, right? He knew what it was all about. So he takes me by, and he’s driving during the first part of the trip, right? He says jump in, I want to show you some stuff about the car, and we’re talking about the car. When we get by the high school, he honks the horn. I’m like, “And what are you doing, proving that the horn works?” And he says, “Just wait a minute…” And he honks the horn again. Pretty soon, these girls look up and say, “Hey, guys…pretty cool car. Can you give us a ride? Can you take us home?” And I’m like…

{Did you take them home?}

No, we didn’t take home. There wasn’t any seat for them…there wasn’t any place for them to sit. But did he know that those girls would be there, and that they were kind of like bad girls, and that they would flirt like they do, and that he had done this a hundred times before? I bet you he had…yeah. So, he kind of figured the whole thing out.

Then we went on the freeway, and we got the car to like 100 miles per hour, and then we slowed down it down. He made me do a power-brake, so we saw the breaking system. Well, was I sold on that car?

{Right away.}

Then, he hit me up…he says, “Mitchell, I know you’ll love this car. I’ve got to have $2,500, right now, before you leave to save that car for you. And I said, “No, no, no, I can’t write you out a check today. I mean, I like that car, and I’m going to go home and think about it…” But he goes, “No, I’ll tell you what, Mitchell,” he says, “If you don’t buy the car, I’ll tear-up the check, but” he says, “if you don’t give me a check I can’t hold up that car. And it’s spring, and that car is going to be gone in 24 hours.” He said, “If you want that car, we’ve got an ad on it in the paper.” And he shows me the ad. He says, “If you want that car…if you write me a check for $2,500, I can hold it for you. If there’s no check, I can’t hold the car for you…” And I said that, “Well, I teach sales, so I can appreciate that…” And he comes back with, “Well, I kind of figured you taught sales, because you were kind of in on a few of my tricks…” And I said, “Like which ones?…” And he said, “Well, the high school-girl trick…that works, just about, every time, and you can tell your students that.” And I said, “Well, I can’t buy this car… I mean, what would my dad say?” He said, “What do you mean, what would your dad say…You’ve got to be old enough. Do you own your own house, or not?” And I said, “Yeah, I own my own house, which is right next door to my dad’s. I can’t hide this from him. He’s going to look at this and go, ‘Why did you buy the most unreliable car in the world? It’s an MG, it’s made in England! They can’t make anything right!’” Except, it’s very very fun to drive right… he said, “Mitchell, I’ll tell you what… I’m going to have you check this car out with 3 independent garages. And they are going to tell you that this is a good investment.” And he asked, “Does your dad respect in your making good investments?” And I said, “ Well, yeah…” And he said, “Well, you tell your dad, then, that you didn’t buy something that depreciates, and that you are pouring money down a rat-whole. This is going to be worth more. These cars are not being made anymore. They quit making them. Everyone of these MGs is only going to get more and more valuable. And the one that you are going to own is even older, so it’s even a little more valuable. This car was hand made. This is not a production car. The car that you have is in good shape, it’s been well taken car of.” He says, “Here’s a car, that was taken care of by a guy who fixes MGs., not just our garage…because you can talk to our mechanic too. But I want you to go and see this guy. As it happened, “I went to high school with that guy… Yeah, I’ll go and see him…”

Well, I took it to my friend, down here in Farmington. I took it to that guy, and I talked to there mechanic, and I was impressed. The guy, who was my friend, ran it up on the rack, and didn’t charge me a penny…he took a quick look, and said, “Mitchell, buy this car. Go right back to that guy, right now, and write out a check for $2,500.” He said, “I want you to know that it’s been in a wreck, it has been crashed, but it has properly been repaired. And there is nothing serious done, it was just some body work…” But he said, “This car…the brakes, the transmission, the engine…all of it’s in good shape.” He went on to say, “You’ll have some electrical problems, because they all have electrical problems. You’ll have a fuel pump that will eventually go out…” And, sure enough, later on it did, but he said I was getting a really good deal. And I said, “So, if I buy this car, can you keep it in really good shape?” And he says, “That’s why I want you to write out the $2,500…” he says, “I want you to come in every now and then. I see some money down the road.” But he said that this car would be worth a $1,000 more in one year from this day. And I said, “No-way…” And he showed me. He had a computer print-out of some MGs, and how their values had increased. And I asked him to make me a copy of it, so I could show my dad. And he said, “Yeah….”

So I bought the MG, and I had a great time. But what was the first thing my dad said, when I drove into the driveway? “What the hell you doing, buying a damned MG…” So, even as an adult, do we have people in our lives who have to justify our decisions to? So as a salesman, do I need to arm you with enough things to justify that decision? Yeah…the rule my dad always had was that you always want your customer to look good in the eyes of their boss. If I’m selling things to a family, you always want to make me look good in the eyes of my wife, right? Or, for the wife to look good in the eyes of the husband…that’s critical. Well, he had armed me with enough stuff, and he got the sale. I mean, it was not a problem for me to do that.

By the way, was that an impulse purchase on my part?

[Oh, yeah…]

Clearly…did it get me any dates? Yes it did! Oh, yeah…I was sitting in my MG, with Ms. Taylor’s Falls…it was so cool. I met her at Lake Calhoun…she saw me on my Hoby Cat, then she saw me in the MG, she had been at the beer garden…sitting and drinking beer all afternoon. And she came up to me and said, “Is that your sailboat? Could I go for a ride?” And I’m like, “Well, you sure can…” And she said, “Did I see you pull in in that maroon and black MG? You can’t pull a sailboat with that can you?” And I said, “Oh, yeah. I had a hitch put on it, and I pull it. It might look funny, but, yeah, I can pull it with that…” Well, pretty soon we for a cat ride, then we went on a date, and we had a great time. I didn’t get anywhere, but…oh, I’m getting embarrassed now, but…actually, I was too old, and she was too young, and I was too ugly and she was too pretty, and…it wasn’t going to happen. But we had a pretty good time. I did get into big trouble with her that second date. I was all excited. I took her to Minnehaha Falls and we had we drank some Champaign from a little cooler that I had stashed in the back. And then we went to the golf course. And my idea was, at the golf course, that the MG was small enough that I could go through where the golf carts go… And I had heard about this before, where if you go to a golf course, it’s really smooth, and nice, and romantic on the green…

[On the green!]

On the green…well, I had a little blanket with me, and so I was going to go out on the green, and I was going to we were going to have a little more of the Champaign, and I had this whole thing planed out…. Well, what happened, when we got to the green?

[You were hit in the head by a golf ball…]

No, this was at night, and no one was golfing. But we just got the blanket setup, we got the Champaign poured, we each had a sip, and then the sprinklers came on. And then she became wet and so we got into the car and headed out. Well, unfortunately for me, the grounds keeper saw the lights from the car, and came with his little golf cart. He got my license plate number, and so two days later, I had a little thing in the mail from the sheriff telling me that I owed something for damages on the golf course.

And I had said, yeah, I was there, but… And he said, yeah, but when you drive a car on a golf course, you leave indentations. And so you’re going to have to pay for that. And it was a bad experience for me.

{The test is on Wednesday, right?}

The test is on Wednesday. Now, the test is on stuff that’s in the book. This is just for fun…yeah.

So, anyway, the bottom line is that salesman knew what he was doing, and he figured out how to get me into the MG game, and play the purchase scenario.

Ok, once we do our presentation, or demonstration, then what do we have to do?

{Close the deal.}

No, we don’t quite get to close yet.

{______________}

Well, ok, we’re going to ask their opinion, but feedback…what we’re going to do is look for objections, right? And objections are where we find their positive or negative beliefs with the product. What you need to find out are what are true and what are false objections. So I might say to you, “Oh, that’s too much money, I can’t afford that…” And he might respond, “Come-on, Mitchell, you’re a college professor, you can afford that…” And I might have said, “Yeah, I might afford that, but what I’m saying is, can I really justify that?” If you figure out that there is an objection that you can’t overcome…well, then you might not get the sale.

But most objections can be overcome. What we try to do is to overcome those objections.

This is where the true professional in sales comes into play. And it’s not a oppressive or something that’s a real negative. It’s a positive thing, and you want to find out where they’re at.

Now, if they don’t have any objections, then you can go to the close, can’t you. Yeah, that’s fine, that will work. So sometimes, it’s just a question of asking for the order. Now, was the salesman who sold me the MG afraid to ask for the order? No, he was very bold, wasn’t he. He came right out and said, “Mitchell, you need to write me a check for $2,500.” He asked for the order. What was my response? “No, no, no…I’m not buying a car today.” Ultimately, that day, it was several hours later, but I did buy that car. I went and checked it out with a mechanic… By the way, while I was doing that, did he get a chance to work in a few more sales pitches about my car? Yeah, because he had to change the flat tire. He had to put a new tire on. This guy was really good. He was not afraid to ask for the order.

So this is what salespeople do. This is what you get paid to do. I can hire an ad, and that ad can kind of hope that you come in to buy the product. But a salesperson can, point-blank, ask, are you going to buy today from us? Are you going to come to Inver Hills or not?

[No, I’m not a prospect.]

Now, if he says no, then I know I have to go back and handle any objections, right? Well, why did you say no? We’re the best priced, etc., etc., etc., Well, now I find out the real objective, which is that you have no time. If you have no time, I can’t get you to come here, right? But if I can show you how to take a class in time management, and you could manage your time better, now you can have the time. Can I overcome that objection? Yes I can.

And that’s the beauty of a really a good salesperson, who is well trained, is that they learn how to do that; they learn how to get this thing going.

Follow-Up

Then we go to the follow-up; and the follow-up includes service, and a critical thing, we must say thank you. How many of you have gotten a thank you in the mail? It’s a nice thing to do. Is it better if it comes personally, or on the phone, or from your salesperson? Yeah. Is it better if the salesperson comes to see you, like I used to do? Every time I sold merchandise to a client, I went to see them to make sure that it was in, that it was right, and they were happy. Why? Because that gets me right back to here, doesn’t it, where you repeat the cycle again. And, now, they might make another purchase from me. But I might simply go there and say, “Well, I’m really thrilled, Kevin, that your happy with the pens you bought. Is there anyone else that you know of that might want to get the quality of service that we provide?” Well, yeah. “Well, who might that be?” And Kevin might say, “Well, Jim…” And I might say, “Well, could you call Jim for me?” Now, this might sound a little pushy but, actually, when I learned that I was like, “Well, that sounds awfully pushy…” But when I tried it, I found that it works. “Yeah, I’ll call him for you, because you’ve done a good job…”

You win. You got a commission, but they’ve won even more, because they get the benefits over and over for a long time, right? If there are true benefits, they are willing to share that with others. How better to start this process than with a telephone call, “Hey, yeah, this is Bob, Jim. I’ve got this guy in here, Rusty Mitchell, he sells ball point pens. You know, you guys are still using Bics down there. Why don’t you put an ad on them and get some value out of them. That’s what Rusty taught me to do. Here, I’ll put him on the phone.” Well, wow! I’ve got an introduction. Is that powerful? Yeah, that’s powerful.

So you want to make sure that you complete that cycle.

The best closing question that I have ever heard…and I love it, this is worth the price of your admission to this class, a few simple words: is there any reason why you and I can’t do business today? No…well, then we’ve got a sale don’t we? If they say, “Well, yeah…” then you’re back to the objection. But, is there any reason why you and I…. What you have to do when you ask that closing question, you shut-up, you zip your lip, and that’s the hardest thing for a salesman to do. They want to talk, they want to keep talking.

Alright, we’ll see you.

Wednesday is test number 3.

{Rusty, are our oral projects the same as our written projects?}

Nope. They could be the same but, no, they are total separate and different.

{Oh, I know that they are separate, but can I do an oral that explains something in my other…do you know what I mean?}

The rule for the oral report is will everyone learn from it; will everyone benefit from it. If that’s the case, then absolutely. If you’re oral thing is too narrow and too focused, like it’s a career thing, and most of the students are going, “I don’t care about accounting careers…” then you didn’t make a good choice of the subject. So your oral presentation has to be of benefit and value to everyone.

{Ok…}