Maybe you’re in sales or in management or you’re an entrepreneur. Or
maybe you’re
"just an employee"—one of those under-appreciated types who usually make the
difference the success or failure of the organization. No matter what you do, this month’s article is
for you.
A few years
back, Selling Power magazine did an feature on me. The opening caption
read, “To his powerful and famous clients, Barry Maher is simply the best sales
trainer in the business.” Now as many of you know, I write and speak and consult
on a lot of issues that have nothing to do with sales—communications,
management, leadership, etc. Even so, since Selling Power is one of the
top sales publications in the country—maybe in the world—I thought that quote
was pretty great. I still use it every chance I get. I work it into casual
conversations, slipping it in cleverly and unobtrusively. Someone will say,
“Nice weather we’re having” or “Think the rain will hurt the rhubarb,” and I’ll
say, “Speaking of weather, I was wondering whether or not you’d heard that
Selling Power magazine said, 'To his powerful and famous clients, Barry
Maher is simply the best sales trainer in the business.'”
You need to be
subtle about it.
Well, now
that I’ve worked the quote in here a couple of times, let me say that shortly
after that article first came out, I decided—great and eminent figure that I
was—that I should give something back to the community. And directly across the
street from me was a community college that just happened to be looking for
someone to teach a class in basic selling to their 18 and 19 year old business
students. I’d cleared my speaking and consulting schedule to work on the new
edition of my novel, Legend, so I was going to be home and available for
the entire quarter. The salary was less than a pittance—maybe half a
pittance—but I didn’t care about that. I was giving something back.
I submitted
an application along with some basic support material. I took the time to walk
across the street to interview with the head of the business department. I never
mentioned the Selling Power article or a few other credentials that
seemed like overkill, but the hiring committee certainly knew that I’d worked
with many of the largest and most successful companies in the world, and that
I’d spoken to and trained groups of all types and sizes.
They hired
somebody else! They turned me down. ME! They rejected me. In favor of somebody
who’d probably never sold a single thing in his life and taught the course from
an astonishingly incompetent textbook on sales written by someone who didn’t
know a whole lot more than he did. REJECTION!
Motivating Past Rejection
The first lesson I would have tried to teach that class would have been about
rejection. Because we all get rejected. At a recent sales workshop—one I was
hired to do—I asked the attendees what they would like to get out of the
session.
“I hate
hearing no,” one woman said. “I’m sure most of us do. The best thing you
could do for us would be to tell us how we can hear fewer noes."
“Nothing could be easier,” I said. “Just make fewer sales calls. And in those
calls you do make, the first time the prospect says no, just thank him
and leave.”
Then I walked
over and—with a certain dramatic flare, I thought—scrawled on the whiteboard,
“Whoever Hears the Most Noes Gets the Biggest Paycheck.”
“What?” the
woman asked in confusion.
“Think about
it for a minute,” I said.
“No, I mean
what is that supposed to say? I can’t read your writing.” So much for drama. “Sorry. It says, Whoever
Hears the Most Noes Gets the Biggest Paycheck. The leading salesperson in
the company is always the one who hears the most noes.
Even outside
of sales, the most successful people are usually those who hear the most
noes. Or are at least willing to hear the most noes.
This month's strategy couldn't be simpler: Start collecting your
noes as soon as possible.
