The Tribune

My love affair with selling began with Junior Achievement (JA). I was in the first ever Bahamian JA class in 1980. I did not hold an executive office, although I felt I should have been the president. No one else thought so at the time, so I was relegated to the sales department. And man did I love it.

We sold macrame keychains that we made by hand. I sold about 1600 of these things. If you remember owning one of these but don’t remember where you got it from, I probably sold it to you and you are probably in that category we call senior citizens.

Commission

I had my routine down. Since I was paid on commission, I would hang out downtown after school while waiting for my father to finish work. I don’t remember selling to tourists, but woe to any Bahamian that crossed my path. We did not have any formal sales training, but I quickly learned the power of a script, that the word ‘No’ has a lot of power over many persons, and that most people were deathly afraid of rejection.

Since I was after money I did not care who rejected me, only who bought the keychains, so I was the best JA salesperson in the country. I still have the trophy.

But what passes as sales training today is really quite pathetic for the most part.

I mean, how ridiculous is it that you are going to take the average person, who is afraid of rejection, put him or her through a couple of days of motivation training, and then expect to see a ton of sales? But that is exactly what happens all too often.

Motivation is important, but it is only one part of sales training. Having a script is also critical to success.

Once I found a dialogue that worked most of the time, I said the same thing to everyone I met. After a while, the only objection I could not overcome was when the person had absolutely no money, like my Aunt’s boyfriend. So I learned to choose my targets better. Incidentally, I also learned that just because you are wearing a suit does not mean you have money. People who had just spent money, like those coming out of a food store, were the best targets.

The next part of sales training that is often overlooked is role playing.

To this day, before selling something I call up someone I trust and rehearse. In fact, I did this today and it resulted in a huge sale. This sale was my inspiration for the column.

NB: D’Arcy Rahming holds a Masters of Management from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. A lecturer at the College of the Bahamas, Mr Rahming has clients in general insurance, retail, the health and medical fields, sports federations and financial services. To receive his marketing newsletter FREE go to http://DArcyRahming.com or contact him directly at darcyrahmingsr@gmail.com