telemachus-and-mentor.JPGFirst impressions are powerful. My first mentor in sales made a great one on me. He was trained as an accountant, incredibly driven, and willing to do anything in the world to help you – even if it wasn’t pleasant. His name was Gary. Here are just a few of the things I learned from him.

1. Have a genuine interest in your customer’s business. You can’t solve problems for customers unless you understand what they need. The only way to find out is to ask a lot of questions and listen. If you’re not genuinely interested, it all goes in one ear and out the other.

2. PLAN! For Gary, sales was not the venue for improvisational theater. Every week, I had to write up my next week’s schedule of calls and everything I planned to do on each call. Friday afternoons Gary would sit me down and review every excruciating detail – not a whole lot of fun, but his suggestions improved my plan and as a consequence, my results.

3. REVIEW! In the same way, Gary and I would go over every excruciating detail of every call I made during the past week. The planning and review process taught me another valuable lesson …

4. Attention to detail. Being in the distribution business, we had tons of brochures (this was long before the Web!). Most sales reps in the industry tossed a brochure on the buyer’s desk and started talking about the weekend sports results. Gary made me read our brochures, and then highlight what I thought were the key points – not just on the copy I read, but on every copy I carried in my trunk. That way, I could draw the customer’s attention to the key points when I used the brochure on a call.

I’ve come to believe that what separates the good sales people from the great ones is follow-through. A lot of reps can make a sharp first impression, but not so many wear well over time. Customers love it when they don’t have to worry whether something is going to get done. When a sales relationship is built on a foundation of reliability, competitors won’t easily undermine it.

5. Passion, baby! Long before it became fashionable to talk about having passion for one’s work, Gary showed me what it looked like to be totally immersed in one’s work and totally in love with it. No challenge was too great. No problem was insurmountable. By sheer force of will, he was able to secure business that on paper seemed impossible.

Elementary, you say? Perhaps, but how many sales people score perfect 10′s in these areas? Most do not, and I’d be scoring 4′s or 5′s at best, had it not been for Gary drilling good habits and attitudes into my head.

This post was inspired by Robert Hruzek’s What I Learned From … project.

(Image – Telemachus and Mentor)


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