25 June 2008
Soft Sell (unedited excerpts from George McGee’s first book)
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Table of Contents
100 Things to Do Before You Die
The Common Denominator of Success
Greatest Salesman in the World
Don’t Tell People about Your Problems
If You Can Talk, You Can Write
100 Things to Do Before You Die
Before jumping headfirst into how make sales softly, perhaps we should spend time analyzing why we work or are in sales, at all. For if we have a strong enough why, how becomes infinitely more do-able.
We work to put bread on the table and roof over our heads first, not very exciting, yet a reality for us all. However, if we’re able to work with a passionate why, that motivation will pull us through difficult times more easily.
Do yourself a huge favor. Put this book down now, get out your journal or a piece of paper and without stopping, write down 100 things you would like to do before you die. Take off the blinders, don’t worry right now about how you will do any of the things you put down, or whether you deserve to do any, or whether it’s realistic that you will ever do any of these things. At least do ten now and we will come back to this. I put visiting Cuba down as one of mine a few years ago, for example when I wrote my first 100 things down.
I visited Cuba with my son, George, in 2002. We discovered that 99% of Cubans had never left Cuba, and they seemed curious about the rest of the world. But like the frog that was not trying to jump out of the boiling water even after the lid had been removed, they were satisfied and accepting of their fate.
Would it surprise you to know that only 10% of Americans even own a passport?
And my guess is that only 1% of those use those passports to go any further than Mexico or Canada, our neighbors. What is the different between Cubans and Americans, if Americans do not take advantage of their inalienable right to experience the world?
So, among your 100 Things to do Before You Die, visiting far away lands might be ten to twenty of those might be places you’d like to visit.
Another 20 might be things you’d like to have? Several vehicles, a boat, a summer beach cottage, a new wardrobe, a new kitchen & deck, a place to meditate in your home, big or small goal, write it down.
No one need see your list, but you. Are you having a hard time completing this exercise? Why? What does that tell you about yourself?
Let me guess. You don’t like to make New Years Resolutions either, do you? Possibly you are more of a problem solver than a goal setting. Socrates said “Know thy self”. Maybe you would have an easier time jotting down “100 Problems to Solve Before I Die”. What challenges do I face considering a trip to India?
Maybe you get depressed thinking about things to do with the feeling that this will only remind you that never will, or that those goals are hopeless. Then I was guessing you think of writing these down once and for all to get them permanently off and out of your mind. Freeing your mind and focus on what is at hand. That would be fulfilling, wouldn’t it?
The final part of my Top 100 List might focus around what you’d like to be. A mediator, a friend, an inspiration, a hermit, a writer, a comic, a rancher, a fireman, a better salesman, a skilled negotiator, a more loving partner, a more forgiving soul, more organized, or a voracious reader.
Once you have completed your list of the 100 Things you’d like to do, be or have, then it’s time to congratulate yourself for accomplishing what 95% of the world population will never do. Go out and reward yourself: play some tennis, take a long walk, go to a nice restaurant, and hug your partner, whatever. Take some time to be kind to yourself for completing the first step in having a more meaningful self-directed life. As Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living”.
Now that we have examined what we want, let’s go back and see the Top Ten Things we want to be, to be doing, or to have and look at them more closely. Let’s spend some contemplative time analyzing why we feel most strongly about our list. Let’s put them on our bathroom mirror at home. Let’s continue to consider why and let our subconscious mind work on how we might be able to reach those goals. What baby steps can be taken in the direction of those aspirations?
I wanted for all my life to visit Cuba. For many reasons, I speak Spanish. I love traveling in Mexico, and I heard from friends how beautiful the land and the people are. I had also thought our US policy towards Cuba was not in line with loving kindness. I understood forty years ago, Kennedy had resolved the Bay of Pigs fiasco, yet look at all the other counties have gotten past that. I mean, we kept communication with Russia and Russia is no longer a huge threat. Why should we punish Cuba, who was merely a cog in the wheel generated by Russia?
If setting goals and clear communication is the answer for personal relationships, wouldn’t the same apply to countries?
Anyway, whatever country you want to visit will happen sooner if you acknowledge it as a goal and show your subconscious to learn as how to get there.
By Referral Only
Who would not want to build their careers By Referral Only? Never make another “cold call”?
When I was selling books door-to-door in college, our training emphasized how much more we would enjoy our work and do much better if before we quit at 8:30pm that night, get the names of the family next door and the ages and grades of their children before we quit. That way the following morning instead of hitting that door to door “cold”, a frightening thing in itself, we had an “appointment with Marcy Clark and her son Willy who’s in the 10th grade, and Suzie in the 5th grade at Wilson Elementary”.
So instead of “Hi, I’m selling encyclopedias” the approach would be “Mary,
I’m George and I’m talking with all the families with children attending Wilson Elementary. Are Willie and Susie home? Great, I can only stay a few minutes, is there a place we can sit down?”
If Mary asked, “Where did you get my name?” or “How was I referred to you?”, my response would be “In visiting with Betty Thompson whose children, Tim and Lucy, go to school with Willie and Susie. Betty wasn’t sure if you’d be interested yet she thought you might be. So I promised her if I dropped by, give you a peek, just to see. Is there a place we can sit for just a few minutes?”
Nine times out of ten, Mary, after hearing of a close friend who had gotten something from me, would at least be curious enough to invite me in and take a look.
And isn’t that all we deserve? Running your business by referral only ensures that you’ll stand a much better change of spending your days with people who are primed to at least consider your services or products, and have some respect and openness due to your having already been positively referred to them by someone they care about.
In my 35 years sales career, I’ve often realized how the “new” ideas of today are often only a slightly different spin on the sales lessons I learned from the Southwestern Company in Nashville – a company over 100 years old at that time, which had been teaching sales skills to contemporaries of my father and grandfather. So what’s the “Ah ha” for me in that story? Wouldn’t your sales/consulting appointments run more smoothly if you had better pre-approach information? Have you been a little lazy about making sure you are referred?
Ten years ago, I had attended Joe Stumpf’s By Referral Only “Main Event”. Before attending, I was asked to fill out a pre-conference questionnaire. This aspect alone told me this experience was going to be different from any other seminar I had attended.
The questionnaire asked, “Where did your business from this last year come from?” I had been thinking of how to double my business the next year. We, like so many of my fellow real estate practitioners yet, stopping to fully analyze the results year just passed was not on my radar. Well, as I analyzed the results. I realized first that my records were not very organized. Could I even find records to analyze?
After considerable digging, I discovered that 60% of my business had come from two advocates. So rather than working to find totally new prospects through expensive, hard to justify advertising, maybe I should focus on appreciating and rewarding those two people. Maybe I should focus on finding two more angels among my current clientele to double my business.
Nevertheless, ten years of being a member of the community which is By Referral Only, I have developed systems which align with that original pre-conference “Ah ha”.
What is as important to me today, at 55, is earning a good living for myself and my family, and enjoying how I spend my day in the workplace. Would you rather spend your day in front of strangers holding a distrusting attitude or friends of clients who’ve been referred to you for your help?
That may seem like a dumb rhetorical question, yet if one were to examine the way 85% of Real Estate, mortgage professionals or many other service providers spend their time, you would wonder no more.
I’ll give you one or two examples. “Great job, George”, we hear from our client, and from some reason, we fear “No problem, don’t mention it”. It’s as if we are saying “Keep this between us, don’t mention it. Thanks, but I’ve to now go put an ad in the paper for my next business opportunity”.
Sounds crazy, yet without systems in place to accept thanks, and to realize when you hear the world thanks, it should be like a meditation bell sounding off. ‘Thanks’ is a sign from the universe that says “You’ve done a good job. I owe you. How can I repay you? In essence, hearing the word, thanks is a referral moment. These moments pass in our country or millions of times without ever being acknowledged, fully recognized, and appreciated.
How about next time you hear the words “Thank you”, you train your mind to realize that as a referral moment and respond with something like the following: “You are most welcome. Thanks for noticing. We would do that for anyone you care about you might send our way. By the way, who is the next person you think of who might be getting ready to buy or sell a home?” Or “You’re welcome. Hope you will not keep me a secret!” Or “You’re welcome. What’s most important to you about what we did?”
Test that the next time. A client of yours says Thank You and sees what happens and then keep testing.
Here’s another minor shift you might consider: What do you say when someone asks “How’s business?” Great! Fantastic! Couldn’t be better! or some version of “We’re kicking butt!” For some reason we’ve been told” People like to do business with winners – with people who are doing well. If that’s true, there lies in that response, an unintended consequence.
Subconsciously it’s like holding up your hand like a stop sign and saying “Great! So I really do not need your help” or “We’re doing so well we don’t have time to help someone you may have been thinking about sending our away”.
Do you see that? So the suggestion Joe Stumpf teaches at the Main Event is to consider answering like this “How’s business?”
And in a charge neutral, not overly enthusiastic, say “Good, mainly because of some systems we’ve put in place to help you and friends you care about you might send our way”.
Now, maybe you may not get a hot referral lead to buy a million dollar home every time. Yet, think how many times as a Realtors or whatever you do, do you have people ask “how’s business” twenty, fifty, one hundred times a year? My guess is that if you trained yourself to answer this way, you might earn an extra $10,000 to $50,000. I know I have.
A By Referral Only mindset is not word of mouth. It’s not hoping for more business. Its advertising our paradigms to embrace the concept that if I am to grow and work By Referral Only, I’m to recognize, appreciate and consequently, put systems and daily language in place to maximize that possibility. Do you like that idea? Would that be hard for you to do? Are you above asking for help?
Names, Names, Names
“Do you all know the Petersons?
“Yeah, sure I know Bill and Mary.”
“Do you know the Randolphs, the Garza’s, the McClellands, the Harringtons, or the Hayes?”
“Yeah, she’s a cheerleader”.
“How about the Thompsons …Joe Thompson? He’s the one at Vanderbilt now?”
“Yes, we know the Thompsons. What have you got? How do you now all these families?”
“How about the Brooks, David and Beth? How about the Rawlings?”
And by the time I’d been in an area for a few days to a few weeks, to have to 20 to 50 names of folks they knew, and admired.
Finally, after reading my entire list of clients I’d say “Well, these are folks who’ve either gotten something from me or my company. I’m not sure whether this will appeal to you or not, but I wanted to pop by, show it to you just to be sure, before I got out of the area. Should we just sit over here on the porch, or would it be better at the kitchen table?”
By this time I’d read the names of 20-50 families these people knew and cared about and had mentioned had “gotten something from me”, they were curious. “Well, sure. Come on in” or “Now, of course” with the children begging.
As I read the names often it became a game. Could I finish the entire list before my potential prospect started getting angry I was not answering the question about just what I was selling? But it was always worth it.
Also, some names were more important than others. The school librarian who bought a study guide from me or from another student in a previous summer would sell more books than I could have ever sold.
My first summer in Riverside, California in 1972, I earned $5,600 in 90 days. Now I work twice as much as the average college student 60 hours a week, yet the summer ended for all of us in September. My second summer, I earned $13,000 and saved $11,000. In 90 days that summer, I earned more than Organic Chemistry and Petroleum Engineering majors (one of the most difficult degrees at the University of Texas) were being offered by the big oil companies, like Exxon. Actually, you could buy a brand new car in1972 for less than $2,000. That was a lot of money. And I would never have earned that much if at the tender age of 20 had not learned the values of names. More importantly, names that worked.
Once my prospect and their children had let me know who they knew best and liked most from “the name game”, I would sprinkle those names in my presentation to solidify the values of the study guide.
“Bobby, the president of the national honor society said if the math section helped in raise his GPA just a little he felt that would help him have his pick of colleges”. And “What Mary really liked about the history section. And what Joey liked about the English section was… And even though Mrs. Houser might have to work another shift or two to afford the study guide, she said if it helped her kids so well in school, it would certainly be worth it!”
I would sometimes spend up to 20 minutes with a few of the kids on the block getting names of families on the entire streets, so I’d never have to make a cold call.
And before I left the family who had fun with me and enjoyed my presentation (which never took more than 20 minutes) I would say “You know Mrs. Houser, I’d hate to bother anyone who doesn’t have children, and do the folks next door have kids in school?”
“No they’re in their 80′s and the folks next door don’t either. In fact, there are no kids until you get to the big yellow house on the next corner. They’ve got five!”
“Is that the Alexanders?”
“No, that’s the Lamars. They’ve got Andre, who’s in 8th with Holly, and Jamie in
4th grade, with my son, Willy”.
“What about the brick house on the other side of them?” I wrote down every name, child’s name, grade and even where they worked. Then, dressed in a T-shirt, shorts and tennis shoes, I’d run not door to door, but to my next appointment referred to me, and bounced up to that door with:
“Vicki, Vicki Lamar?”
“Yes”
“Hi, I’m George and I’m one of those high pressure door-to-door salesmen.
Can you tell?”
Vicki would usually giggle, and before she could say, “We’re not buying anything” I’d say: “Have you seen the new TV the Thompsons got? Mary told me your daughter
Holly has practically moved in with them… Is that true?”
“Well, Holly does go down there a lot”.
“Well, Mary just got something from me, she was not sure if you’d be interested. But she said Marcy was really excited about it and thought Holly would be. too. Are Andre and Jamie here too?”
“Well, yes.”
“Great, I can only stay a few minutes because I have to show these to 30 families today. Is there a place we can sit down?”
People always tell me when they hear I sold “dictionaries” door-to-door that they couldn’t believe there was any money in that, and usually they’d follow that with “I’d never let you in” or “We never buy from door-to-door salesman”.
I didn’t get in every door, mainly because I didn’t want to. Yet I’ll bet I got into 90% of the doors I wanted to. Why? I’d learned the importance of names. At the ripe old age of 21, I had learned an extremely valuable lesson: that names, referrals, and excellent pre-approach would get me in their door. The valuable lesson would be one of the most valuable lessons about sales and marketing I would ever learn.
Did selling books change my life? Well let me ask you. “If you earned more in three months, as a sophomore, than the brains in the majors in college were going to have to spend four times as long to earn, would it change your thinking or career planning?”
My father was a judge all his life. He made a good living, yet he never had the opportunity to take more than two weeks off at a time his whole life.
I decided then that learning to sell was a skill and that if I were willing to work hard, even if just for 90 days, at a time with people I chose to, and earn more money than lawyers as a 20 year old history major.
And I would never be at the mercy of some boss or company who could fire me after 20 years of service. I felt free. I felt in control and I decided to embrace the fact that I had learned to sell in a way that I and the people who were my clients could enjoy.
Somehow, working three months and having nice months off seemed too sweet to ever pass up in life.
One Comment so far...
Angela Says:
23 July 2008 at 11:14 pm.
George, enjoyed the book “preview”. Looking forward to reading the rest of it! ~Angela D.
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