Preface: Jack Malcolm is a close friend and someone I count as a mentor. Our relationship didn’t start that way, in fact it was contentious. Fortunately, we saw past our differences. Jack has written one of the best books on business/financial acumen, I ‘ve ever read: Bottom Line Selling. He’s also written one of the best books on “communications,” in Lean Communication, as well as Strategic Sales Presentations. Jack’s story is fascinating, like many of the others. He suddenly found himself in selling, developing a deep passion for it.
How I Learned to Love Selling
I didn’t start my career wanting to be a salesperson, or to be in the business of persuasion at all. In fact, I wanted to have as little to do with selling as possible, so I got a degree in finance and went to work for a commercial bank in south Florida where I could happily crunch numbers without having to have much to do with people. At that time the banking industry was very heavily regulated, so we didn’t have to compete too hard for customers. In fact, we joked that banking was subject to the “3-6-2” rule—pay 3% on deposits, lend it out at 6%, and hit the golf course every day at 2.
In an unfortunate masterpiece of poor timing, I entered the industry just before Congress passed a whole new set of laws deregulating the financial industry, which soon forced clueless hotshots like myself to go out into the real world and try to bring in customers. I had to figure out how to sell, and quickly. I had no formal sales training and no way to differentiate my product (what’s more of a commodity than money?). But, because I like to eat and have a roof over my head, I went out and gave it a go. I’m sure I made every mistake in the book but gradually I got better at it, although with no method or systematic approach.
But I still saw selling as a necessary evil, something I had to do to keep my job.
One day this all changed. I managed to get an appointment to see the CEO of a reasonably large local company to try to pitch him our banking services. I’m sure the only reason he gave me his time was because I worked for one of the larger banks, not because of any special skill in C-Level selling.
I walked into his imposing mahogany-lined office and introduced myself. We chatted for a short time, and then he got down to business. “So, tell me why I should bank with you.”
I’d dealt with this question many times before, but this time, I looked at him for a couple of seconds, and all that came out of my mouth was “I don’t know.”
I’m not sure which one of us was more surprised by my answer. There was an uncomfortable silence for a few moments, and then in a tone that implied he was trying to figure out whether to get angry or laugh at me he asked, “You want me to bank with you but you can’t tell me why?”
I had to think fast, because another weakness of mine is that I hate to look stupid, so I said, “Well sir, I have a lot of customers who are very satisfied with the services we can provide. We help some of them grow their businesses with loans and lines of credit, we help some with cash management services or investment advice. Until I know more about your business, I don’t know if you should bank with me. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
He said, “Interesting approach. Go ahead, ask me a few questions.”
I don’t remember exactly what I asked, but as the conversation went on his answers grew longer and soon he was telling me about how he founded the company and the pride he felt in what he had achieved. By the end of the meeting, he agreed to give us a small piece of his business, and he later became one of my largest and most important clients.
That’s the day that the idea of selling clicked with me. As I drove back to the bank, I thought about what had just happened, and I realized two things: selling could be rewarding if you saw it as a way to help people get what they want, and there was some logic to the process that even I could learn.
From that unexpected beginning, I began to take sales seriously as a process and as a craft. I read books, took all the training the bank started to offer, and even got the bank to certify me as an internal sales trainer. From there, I went to work for another training company, and a few years later went on my own, where I continue to teach, and above all to learn more and more about this fascinating and worthwhile profession.
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