Find the Might to Try as You Must
don't want to write this. It is over 100 degrees outside and the air conditioner is having trouble keeping up. There are four other projects waiting to be done. I would rather be at the beach, lying in the sand and feeling a cool breeze wash over me.
Perhaps you won't notice if this doesn't appear. After all, you have read about closings and being prepared and how to listen for years now. You certainly won't mind skipping the sales tip just this once ...
But you are expecting a sales tip, and my job is to provide it to you. In reality, it is something I love to do. There may be one person reading this who has not yet realized that you always have to ask for the sale (never ever forget to ask for the sale). And besides, if I don't write this one, will I write the next one?
So now I need to look for inspiration and motivation. I need to find that one spark to keep new ideas flowing. It can take the form of anything at all. For example, this article is about perseverance. I came up with the idea while I was desperately searching for a sales tip idea to expand on. Perusing old Green Sheets, I came across my article about Bill Porter (Green Sheet, August 12, 2002, issue 02:08:01). You may have heard of him, a door-to-door salesman in Oregon. His life was chronicled in a movie last year, "Door to Door."
Bill Porter was born with cerebral palsy. He was told he was unemployable. He was told that he should rely on government money to exist for the rest of his life. But Bill Porter didn't listen to these naysayers. Instead he listened to his mother, who was certain that he could earn his own way in the world. He sold redwood planters to help raise money for an organization his mother started. He was a salesman.
He had to persevere from the start of his career. He was turned down at the Fuller Brush Company. He was even turned down originally by The Watkins Company, which specialized in door-to-door sales of household products. But Bill didn't take no for an answer and finally was given a route.
He went on to become the top producing salesman for the Watkins Company. Persistence and patience were his tools. No matter how many times he was told no, no matter how many mornings he just did not feel like getting out of bed, he always managed to reach inside himself and push on.
We all face this challenge every day. Whether we have physical disabilities or problems in our personal lives that demand our attention, we all have to reach inside and push ourselves to continue. People need us to get up in the morning and do what we do best.
If you don't go to work today, will you and your family be OK? Will you have the things you want and, more important, the things you need? I hear you saying, "But it's just one day? What could it hurt?"
What if there is a merchant out there who needs your services? How do you know that just that one merchant won't be the one to refer you to a big account? If you don't show up today, someone else might. Your big opportunity could go to someone else, someone who found the strength to go to just one more cold call.
Or what if there is a merchant out there who desperately needs credit card processing? The merchant doesn't know where to turn and is losing sales. Maybe, just maybe, if you call on that merchant, you can make the difference in keeping the business afloat.
I know that these may be extreme examples, but the point is we are interdependent on each other to do our jobs, to find the resolve to go on even when it is not easy. I had to force myself to write this, but it became easier as I went along. My inspiration to persevere was the thought that if even just one person reads this and decides to work on a day when they thought they couldn't, I have done my job well. Perhaps today will be the day that person makes one big sale ... who knows?
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