By The Numbers

In one of my previous lives, I worked on commission sales. You know, where if you don’t sell, you don’t eat. People used to ask me, "How can you have a job like that? You never know how much, if any, money you will make." The truth is that I made more in sales than I ever did on a salary job. But, my standard reply to the question was, "I have sensitive hearing. When my wife and child start to cry because they are hungry, I go sell something, because all that crying hurts my ears."

Sales is a tough job. In fact, in another life, I loaded trucks and boxcars and sales was much harder. There was a simple rule on sales, if you make 10 calls you will make one sale. That rule still applies. Right now I am engaged in putting together a retiree club in our new found world. The retirees are those that retired from the same company I did. The phone list has almost 1000 names. I decided quickly I would not make that many calls, so I screened out some folks. And, I recruited some helpers.

Collectively we have made about 500 calls and we have had 50 responses. That sounds terrible, but it is about the average. That’s why so many people don’t work in sales. The amount of effort and the disappointments are just more than the average bear can stand.

But there is another rule of by the numbers. ‘Nothing happens until a sale is made.’ All it takes is comfortable shoes and blind determination.

It doesn't hurt to be a little bit crazy too.

PMO
©2013