Thursday, November 6, 2008

"I'm sure you've heard of him."

One thing we sales people know is crucial to our presentations is sales posture. Posture is how you present yourself, your product, or your opportunity. Face to face sales is a little tougher to make create a fake sense of urgency/elitism...i.e., "Listen, I've got a LOT of appointments in your neighborhood and if you're not serious about this vacuum cleaner, let's not waste each others time."

In the 2-part over-the-phone sale I've been raised in where there's a setter and a closer, I've heard some amazing ways to posture the closer. Sales reps are always finding new and exciting (completely stupid) ways to try create a false sense of reality. Here is one of my all-time favorite sales rep's personal spin on setting up a closer. We'll call him Gary. I sat next to Gary for a few months and got this down pretty much word-for-word. Get your tape recorders out because Gary is about to learn you some skillz.

"Okay, Bob...I'm going to put you on hold for a few minutes while and go see if there's any chance the Executive would be willing to speak with you, could you hold for a few minutes? thanks."

Gary takes off his headset, walks into the bathroom to drop the kids off at the pool. Walks over to the "closer", tells him it's a laydown and waits for a few more minutes. Then the fun begins. 

He would put his headset back on, look at his watch, and then start breathing in and out heavily like he was giving birth. 

"Okay...whooo whooo...Bob, whooo whooo... are you there? Okay, thanks for holding. Man, I'll tell you what, running up 25 floors to those executive suites when you're out of shape feels like I'm running the Boston Marathon again....whooo whooo...(We worked on the 2nd floor of a 2-story building and the only Marathon Gary ever did was a 45 Minute Marathon Dump on the toilet.)

"Okay, I've got some good news, and I've got some bad news. What do you want to hear first? (Even if the client said 'The good news', he'd say) Okay, let's start with the bad news. The bad news is that as I was walking through the executive offices, it was chaos. Not only did his first secretary went home but his second secretary went home! I had to put on a pair of football shoulder pads just to get in the door. And turns out, as soon as I get to the front of the line, the Executive leaves in his helicopter for a seminar in New York. So that's the bad news , is it looks like I can't get you an appointment."

Client: "What about the good news?"

"Well, the good news is as I was waiting by the elevator, an older gentleman in a $2500 suit walked by me and stopped. He asked me what was wrong and I said, 'I've got this client on the phone named Bob who really wants to do our program and the executive just flew off and now I have to disappoint Bob and I don't want to do that because he was very excited about this opportunity.' Then you know what happened Bob? This man looked at me and asked, 'Gary, is Bob serious about his financial goals?' and I said, "Yes!", cuz you are right? And then he said, 'Well, then you tell Bob that I'm going to have my secretary cancel my afternoon meetings and I will get on the phone with him.' So, Bob, you are going to be speaking basically to my boss's boss's boss! His name is Mr. Raddock, write that down, and his first name is Darren. Now, you've been online for a few years, I'm sure you've heard of Mr. Raddock, right?" (Little did the client know that D. Raddock was outside sitting on the tailgate of his 1991 Ford truck, listening to some Lynrd Skynrd, smoking a Marlboro. The only TV he has been on was an episode of COPS.)

And for some reason, the client would always say, "You know what, I think I HAVE heard of him!"

We loved when Gary set up a closer. We'd all stop what we were doing and watch. And the best part is, sometimes he'd yell at us afterwards when we were laughing. 

"SHUT UP GUYS! IT WORKS!"

Gary got fired a few weeks later from pulling an Andy Bernard and punching a couple holes in the drywall...and unlike the Nard-Dawg...I'm sure he's still in anger management.

2 comments:

Cody/Stanford/Jacob said...

Funny Sh*t. We miss you bro. I love this blog. I am gonna follow it ok? How you doing? what you doing? Thanks for a few laughs.

Cody/Stanford/Jacob said...

ps....I got everyone reading your blog now. Cause is funny sh*t. you rock!