How a Down and Out Sales Crew Rose from Ashes to Win at Sales

This story is completely true. It is not a fantasy. It will tell you how what seems to be magic can be used to create phenomenal sales.

I did not want to be a sales manager. I loved to sell using my system of "The Magic of Numbers and Statistics in Sales." Initially I didn't want to teach it to others because I knew they would have a hard time accepting my system.

I went out to Newark, Ohio to rebuild a small office. The office had never really taken off as there had been a lot of problems there. The previous sales manager had deemed that Newark was uncapable of making any sales.

The Newark sales manager's negative thoughts were so strong that everyone in the office believed there was no way to make sales in the city. I had been told to shut down the office but I persuaded senior management to let me try to rehabilitate the office, rather than shutting it down.

This was the last chance for that office. The place was riddled with the doubts of the sales people and especially the sales manager. This was the toxin that was killing sales in Newark, and if I couldn't get it out of there, the game would be over.

But I absolutely knew that people in Newark were not different than in any other town we had successfully sold. I knew the Newark office could make sales.

Everywhere we had gone our system had been successful, and I knew all we had to do was repeat it in Newark with a positive attitude.

I believed it would be easier to start with a new crew then to change the deeply negative thoughts of the current group. I told everyone they were absolutely right, and that Newark was an too hard to sell. I advised them to find work elsewhere.

One young lady begged me to stay, she told me she really enjoyed her work there and she wanted to keep her job.

But, I had to explain that I expected a lot more than the previous manager. Before she was expected to sell only five hundred dollars per week. I, however, would expect three times that as a minimum.

Teary eyed, she told me she would do whatever it took to make the new quota, she said she would be excited to triple her sales, if only she knew how.

I could truly feel this woman's sincerity. She was clearly open to learning a new way. And I knew that if she could accept it, I could show her the way to make those sales.

I showed her exactly how she needed to follow the system step by step and how that would lead to making her quota. I revealed to her every single thing that needed to be done to make sales.

I explained to her that sales was more than just coming to work. You have to actually work while you're at work. You have to believe while your dialing that the people want what you have. You have to be kind, you have to be sincere, you have to transmute the feeling you have about the products and services to the prospect on the phone. Without this, nothing will ever happened.

By keeping track of her results by percentages, I showed her how to determine the number of sales she could count on per number of prospects contacted. . If for instance, if she started out making one sale for every 10 prospects she contacted that can be a number she can count on no matter what.

So if she wanted to make a certain amount of money in sales per week, that she would have to do a certain amount of presentations each week in order to get a certain amount of sales. And because she would know how many presentations she had to do per sale, she would know how many presentations she had to make each day to make a certain number of sales in a week.

She was amazed the first week when she actually hit her goal. And she had done it herself! The truth of my system became more real and more true to he as week after week she made that quota. Finally she understood that it was all up to her to do a certain amount of presentations, and that would lead to a certain number of sales, that would create an amount of income she could count on.

And then I introduced her to the next step: increasing her ratio of sales from yes's to nos, by raising her belief level, and her consistency. And of course that would lead to even more increases in income.

I hired more salespeople, and trained them side by side with the young woman who was aliving example of the things I was teaching them. Slowly I built up a group of five top salespeople, including the young woman. Everyone was making quota with the system.

At this point I had a blended crew, some new members, and some members from the old sales team. Over time two others had come back to me and I allowed them to come back one at a time, and I taught them the new way. Everyone used the new system, quotas were being made. And then it was time for a test of my great team.

We had only been able to turn the sales people from the old crew around by changing their thoughts, because we showed them that Newark was a place you could make sales. They could see it, and when they believed it, they made sales.

One afternoon I pulled the same sheets of numbers that had been used by the previous manager out of the drawer of my desk. These shame-filled pages still held bookmarks of the unfinished area and notes that detailed that sad results of the old method of calling.

It visibly affected the team members from the old sales crew when they saw me pull out the old sheets. They thought those were bad sheets, they thought the numbers were just bad numbers. But I insisted. "These are wonderful numbers," I told them, "There is nothing wrong with the numbers. We will make out fine with them."

They told me, we have dialed those before, and they did not work. Those are the meanest people we ever called, they slam the phone on us, they will not talk twelve even fifteen to us. If we make a sale they are never home when we try to deliver.

But this, this was now a powerful crew. These were the best salespeople in this company. This was the team that had been setting records over every other office in the company.

At this time the company was covering three states, so it was quite an accomplishment for this crew. I looked at them and I told them you have the ability to call the same people on this list that told you no before, but this time they will say yes. The reason you'll do this this time, is that now you believe, now you have a different attitude, now you have new sales skills, now you know you have something to offer that is good and that these people want it. They said "we will try." But I knew I had a problem.

So we started dialing. I did everything I could keep the room cheery, I made a pot of gourmet coffee, the aroma would fill the room. I brought in some doughnuts, I tried to make a few jokes. However at five o'clock we did not even have one sale.

Now I had promised my boss, that I would never walk out of my office without at least seven hundred dollars in sales for the day. We had zero. However, I was not worried, I knew my crew had the ability to pull off a minimum day in only one hour if they decided to. We normally turned in twelve hundred dollars or more per day in sales.

7 o'clock rolled around and we only had two hours of dialing time left. I stopped my crew. They were very despondent. The fear and negative thoughts that had been part of their life from the old manager had taken control of them again. It was almost as if the negative thoughts magically left the paper into their hands and went up to their brains.

I reminded them that their success came from the changes they made in their beliefs and attitudes. It was not about the numbers,a nd it wasn't about the management. I simply pointed out to them their own innate sales skills, and showed them ways to help them put that drive into action. Success had come from skills they had already demonstrated, they could still take these numbers, and numbers, and make sales. I knew that.

Calling resumed, but I knew I was losing them. They were whining and complaining. I was losing my cool. Half an hour left and no sales.

I asked everyone to stop. I told them that I had made a promise never to turn in less than 700 dollars for one days sales to my supervisor and I am going to keep that promise even if we have less than half an hour left today. I have listened to your concerns, even your complaints and whining all day.

You are the best crew I have ever had, and probably one of the best I will ever have. But today I am disappointed in all of you. I'm disappointed because I know you can do better. You have done better. You need to realize that you have let yourselves down. These numbers are not bad numbers -- but you are ruining them with your negativity and especially your negative self talk. It's you, not the numbers.

With that, and in an angry voice, I demanded that they hand me the very worst sheet of numbers in the room. They quickly decided which was the worst, and I grabbed that one. I told them that I was going to have to do 700 dollars in sale myself.These sales had to also be delivered by our drivers before 9:30pm, and the checks picked up. So I told my drivers to wake up because they were going to get very busy.

I pointed to my number one and number 2 sales writers, "you and you, I will not have time to write down these sales, so you will need to fill out the order forms as you hear me repeat the customer's name".Our average sale was $35.00, so I was going to have to make 20 sales in about 20 minutes. I knew I had no time to take a no. Everyone had to say yes to me. I knew, that if I believed, no one could say no to me, if I was sincere, if I believed I was doing the right thing, If I believed I was doing something good for someone, and I did.

So I made that first call and I sold the first person I talked to, and I sold second person I talked to, and I sold the third person I talked to.It was true! Not one of them could say no to me. I was truly at the top of my game! And I was proving to my people that they could choose not to allow the negativity in their minds to stop their sales. I was showing them they could control it.

By the time 9 o clock rolled around, dialing the very worst numbers that crew had to offer me, I hit my 700 dollar quota. My drivers had the products delivered and the checks picked up by 9:30.The crew was amazed. They could not believe what they had just seen. I then handed back the sheet of numbers and told my crew that I would never accept "bad numbers" as an excuse in that office again.

That was just the beginning. Now they knew that success was up to them. My sales team outsold other offices with 3 to 4 times the numbers of sales staff. The local district gave us what they considered the worst sales territory, and we turned that around to have our highest sales figures ever.

Although my 5 people had to share 3 phones, and we were calling an area called a disaster, my crew knew that did not matter. They believed they could do it, and we still outsold many of the offices with 12-15 phones and 20-25 salespersons.

50% of everyone we talked to said yes. The company average was 5%. My best average as a saleperson before I started managing was 33%. But now my crew was doing better than I had done.These numbers were so fantastic that no one else would believe us. But my crew believed because they were doing it.