How to NOT Overcome the Wife Card

I'm happily married and I love my wife dearly. She's the whole package. She makes me a better person. When she leaves to a weekend convention, I turn into a complete tool. I can't get off the couch. I can't get anything done. I can't even feed myself. I stay up late watching Telemundo because I can't fall asleep. I don't even habla the espanol. I think wife's are a precious commodity...like gold, before it came off it's 100 year high last month.

That being said, Salesmen HATE the wife card!

She takes food off our tables. She keeps our kids in public schools. She is the reason we pick up a $5 Little Caeser pizza 3 nights a week. She is the reason our kids teeth are jacked up. She turns decent commission checks into sub-minimum wage crap. She's a deal killer.

Nothing worse than taking a prospect through a 2-hour presentation, going for the credit card, and then...Joe 6-Pack takes out his wallet...and pulls out...the Wife Card.

No 16 digits on that card.

"I gotta talk this over with the Misses."

Let me give you a great example of what NOT to do in this situation. I'd like to thank a guy I worked with years ago for this gem. To preserve his anonymity, we'll call him, Dumb-A.

It was a Saturday morning. If you worked on Saturday it's because you didn't make enough money Monday thru Friday like the rest of the world so you HAD to come in.  Dumb-A was a punk. He was a total shadester, everything wrong with the sales world. His cheeks sagged like a Sharpe` dog, he would close deals with a HUGE dip in his lip. This dude took a sky-dive face first off the fugly plane without a parachute. Anyways...

He's closing a deal, it's almost lunch, and he's almost tied it up. And then...out comes the wife card.

"I know I told you earlier I didn't need to run this past my wife, but now I know all the details, I really think I'd like to."

Big Mistake. 

Dumb-A HATED coming in on Saturdays. Probably because he got shiz-faced drunk every Friday night and we had fluorescent lights in the office. I was sitting behind him when the top blew off. He started getting so upset at the prospect that the guy hung up on him.

Dumb-A threw his headset on the ground, dropped the muther-eff bomb, picked his headset back up, and hit re-dial.

No answer.

Redial.

No answer.

"Muther-eff bomb."

Finally, he decided to leave a message. This is as close to verbatim as I can remember.

"Dave, this is Dumb-A. You know what, a few times in my life I meet complete morons with no chance at ever becoming successful, so much so that I actually started a newsletter to sent to people like that, and you just made my mailing list.  I really hope you did not intentionally hang up on me, because if you did, I'll just have my secretary (we didn't have secretaries) send you a bill for $500 for the 2 hours you wasted at my $250/hour rate. I know you're scared, and you're probably hiding behind your wife, which I'm confident she's probably pretty easy to hind behind, but if you can ever find your genitals again, give me a call back. Oh...wait, I forgot...when a squirrell runs up your right pant leg and comes down your left, he's comes out starving. Isn't that right? Because you have NO NUTS up there!!"

(phone slams)

Dumb-A storms out. Gets into his 1992 Jaguar and leaves.

Next Monday. Client calls corporate headquarters. He PLAYS THE TAPE FROM HIS ANSWERING MACHINE to the Sales Director.

Adios Dumb-A.