WHY THEY CALLED MY CEO AND SAID I WAS A JERK

I am not real proud of this one.

But this story needs to be told.

The prospect called the CEO and VP of Sales of my company he
was so pissed off.

The customer's offices were in Colorado Springs. I was
living and working out of Seattle at the time.

I had committed to fly out and give a demonstration of our
accounting software to this company. They had planned on
bringing a few people in from their offices in other cities.

Plane flights were required for them, from where I can't
exactly remember.

In fact I can't even remember the name of this prospect. I
guess that's selective memory loss.

But one week before I was to fly 3 states away and give my
all afternoon sales presentation I made a decision.

I had this sinking feeling in my gut that this sale wasn't
for me.

I had been in sales for nearly 6 years, and one thing I had
started to notice was that I was developing an intuition
about my deals.

Every deal I had ever won felt right from the start. And
similarly every deal I had lost felt bad from the start.

So a little late, I decided to trust my intuition.

I say a little late because I should've never committed to
going out and visiting onsite. And I shouldn't have waited
till just a week before to cancel.

I should have said no right up-front when I did my
qualifying, and I could see by the business requirements
that were driving the deal that it wasn't the best fit for
me.

But I didn't.

And I called and canceled my visit.

And this prospect chewed me out. He threatened me that he
would call my company and tell them. Then he made good on
his threat and called my VP of Sales and my CEO and told
them how unprofessional I was.

At the time I felt both good and bad about my decision.

I felt good because I knew that I had made the right
decision for me, and for my company.

I felt bad because I had broken a commitment and probably
cost some other people some bux due to my inexperience and
inability to be decisive up-front.

When I spoke to my VP of Sales, he wanted to know why I
backed out of the deal.

I explained why this was not a good deal for us to be in, he
agreed with me and said he would tell the CEO that and back
me up. He just wished I hadn't pissed off the prospect.

You gotta have a thick skin in sales. You gotta do the right
thing for you and your company.

Sometimes that means breaking a commitment if it's one you
shouldn't have made.

Sometimes that means disappointing or even angering someone.

Better to make the right decision the first time. But part
of life is making mistakes and learning from them. The
sooner you can recognize and correct a mistake the better.

You gotta be yourself if you're gonna have a chance at
connecting with people and doing well in sales. And to be
yourself you gotta dump the baggage that we all got loaded
up with before going into selling.

THE DAY I BECAME A PAIN-JUNKIE

I remember the day I became a pain-junkie.

It was pretty damned exciting.

I don't mean self-inflicted pain.

No.

I am talking about my prospect's pain.

I remember it well.

I had my questions all planned in advance.

I knew what I was going to ask to find the pain. And I knew
what I was going to ask to stick the knife, twist it around,
and make it hurt.

All I needed was a prospect.

And then the phone rang.

My lead generation efforts had paid off.

Someone was calling me wanting to find out about my
services.

As I picked up the phone, I put myself into high "On" mode.

I used all the rapport techniques I had studied, practiced,
and mastered.

I started asking the pain questions, used my control
questioning technique to keep control of sales call, found
the pain, and magnified it with more questions.

I leverage that pain into a commitment. A commitment by my
prospect to make a decision, yes or no, then and there with
me while we were both on the phone.

Commitment secured, I finally "presented". I discussed how
my service worked, what my prospect could expect to get from
it, what my qualifications were, and what the prices of the
package options were.

We discussed it a bit, and he made a decision. Just like he
committed to doing.

I had a new customer.

And I got paid.

I was so ecstatic, I had to hold back from laughing out
loud!

I mean, I knew exactly what I was doing every step of the
way. Once I had found pain that I knew I could do an
excellent job of solving, I knew I had about 60-70% chance
of closing this prospect.

And when I got the commitment that he would make a decision,
I knew that my chance of closing had just risen to about
80-90%.

I wanted to laugh, because for the first time in years, I
felt fully in control of the sale.

My transformation was complete.

I had become addicted to pain.

I had become a pain-junkie.

Selling hasn't been the same for me ever since. It's sooo
much more fun now.