"If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”
Romans 12:18
I remember when I started my first “real” sales job. It was all about making quota, that is reaching
(and hopefully exceeding) the required number of sales my company wanted me to
achieve each month.
Now, for me, working in sales was hard. And doing sales in New York City was even
harder. I would tirelessly cold call
people on the phone, show up at business offices, blast faxes to lists of
businesses, mail out postcards, and send out weekly e-mails to prospects-
whew! All this effort was to generate
the blessed “appointment”; a set time with a decision maker to sit down and offer
my wares to a potential buyer.
“Appointments set” was the goal that management had us chase because appointments
were expected to inevitably generate sales.
Sales Manager: “Furniss- how many appointments did you
set today?”
Sales Manager (regardless of the number I replied): “You
(really stink)! I’d have gotten double
that number in half the time. More
calls!”
When I did finally get an appointment in my early tenure, it
was even harder. I had to look some
adult in the eye and try to solicit a need for my product. After listening to my spiel, they would then
poke holes in my nascent presentation with “objections”. Objections were good I was told- it meant
that they were paying attention and should be considered to be “masked buying
signals”. Things that were considered
bad were visible apathy, frequent phone checking, over-agreeability, and yawning.
However, I didn’t see it that way. Objections were bad for me; I had no idea
what to say most of the time.
Decision Maker: “Your product is too expensive!”
Me: “Uh… yeah, I guess it does cost more than the other
guys- you got me there. Do you mind if I
circle back to you if we ever cut our price by 50%?”
I needed help, and fortunately, my sales manager was a
self-professed sales closer. I wanted to
see how someone of his ilk could set aside difficult objections to score big
deals. So I asked him if I could
accompany him to one of his harder sales appointments to see how it was done.
Sales Manager: I
wish I could help you with that, Rowboat (a nickname for having no “sales”),
but that is an impossibility with me.
Me: It’s impossible for you to take me on a sales call?
Sales Manager: No… I just can’t take you an any “hard”
sales calls, Rook. They’re all easy.
At the time, I thought his response was a way to dodge being
exposed as a sales pretender while still expanding his aura of cockiness.
However, after being there for a few years and looking back,
he really didn’t have any hard appointments. As a sales manager, he had kept a decent
amount of large, longtime clients that he brought lunch to and visited
often. He knew the decision makers very
well and brought a humble attitude (one he did not share with his underlings)
of empathy and service. When
opportunities for new sales came, his clients were bringing it to him, and not
vice-versa. And as long as they stayed
in their current roles, their existing business with him was never going to a
competitor- they loved him.
As I got into property management
in Charlotte, I began to realize how hard it could be. Our owner landlords had ideas on how things
should go, our tenants had others, and the property management company
sometimes had a completely different version.
We could constantly be fighting with everyone and make every day a
battle. Or we could try to facilitate an
easier environment, a land of “no hard sales calls”.
Property management, like sales appointments, can be easy
(or at least easier). But it does take a
continued, humble effort of empathy and service to pull off.
Happy (Easy) Landlording!
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