One high heel shoe

Selling is never easy. One day a conversation took place between the boss and the salesman:

Boss: Did you get any orders today?

Salesman: Yes, I got two!

Boss: Congratulations! What were they?

Salesman: “Get out!” and “Stay out!”

As I said clearly, life in sales is never easy. I should know because I was in sales myself. I had to go from one department store to another, peddling my product sample, waiting for hours in a smoke-filled office full of salespeople from other companies and competitors for my turn to be given a 10-minute window to present my stuff. It was hard.

Salespeople usually have a cheerful demeanor. They seem to be bright and bubbly all the time. They laugh, tease, joke around, and earn a lot of money through the commissions they make. Some salespeople may be loud, and they seem annoying, but being a former salesperson myself, I can explain why this is the case. It is a coping mechanism for facing rejection and refusals they eat for breakfast every day.

You have a product or a service offering. You know that you have a winner. But it will not mean much if you cannot get the procurement or purchasing officer to at least give your product a look and see what it can do for them. Sara Blakely had this problem. She had a product and was confident it would be a winner. But getting prominent retailers to carry her product in their stores was a difficult challenge.

For one, the brand for her product was unknown and it was intended to enter a crowded market. And two, a slight misspelling of the brand name redirects the web search to a porn site. So how does the word “difficult” sound to you if you were in her shoes? She made a list of the top retailers in the country like Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdales, Saks Fifth Avenue, and the predictable outcome was obvious. She did cold calls, but no one would return her calls. All she needed was just five minutes on the phone with a buyer, but this was easier said than done. Sarah was not dissuaded. With persistence, creativity, and a little bit of witty humor, she did something dramatic and original.

She brought a few pairs of shoes to the post office and mailed each of the retailers a shoebox containing a single high heeled shoe and a handwritten message that read, “Just trying to get my foot in the door, can I have a few minutes of your time,” followed by her phone number. Guess what happened? It worked! The gag amused the buyer at Neiman Marcus, and he called her back. It is easy to assume that the deal with this retailer gave her legitimacy which helped her build relationships with other big retailers within a year. Sarah got accounts with every store in her initial list, and more.

You are probably wondering what her product is and how much is she worth today? Well, our friend Google says: Sara Blakely cut the feet off her control top pantyhose and invented what we now know as Spanx. Blakely is now worth more than $1 billion, according to Forbes.

It has been said that fortune favors the bold and the prepared. You need to add persistence and creativity into the line to make it work effectively. A little bit of wit, a little bit of humor. Tons of persistence and an unrelenting drive to never take “No” for an answer. If you walk away the moment you see resistance and opposition, selling may not be for you. If you think about it, perhaps there is nothing much out there for you.

Sales expert and millionaire Grant Cardone says: “The major difference between successful and unsuccessful people is that the former look for problems to resolve, whereas the latter make every attempt to avoid them.” I agree.

(Francis Kong’s highly acclaimed Level Up Leadership Master Class online will run from June 22 to24. Develop leadership skills that translate into personal, career, and business growth in the current reality and the post-COVID world. For inquiries and reservations, contact April at +63928-559-1798 or and for more information, visit www.levelupleadership.ph)