by John Carroll

She may not have realized it, but my mother was training and preparing me for a career in sales. Don’t believe me? Here are eight samples of Mom’s homemade sales training:

1. "Wear clean underwear." You’ve heard this one yourself. Mom says you’d better be wearing clean underwear, because you just might get hurt and be taken to the hospital. Certainly you wouldn’t want the doctors and nurses to see you in dirty undergarments.

Mom must have understood that being prepared for the worst possible situation would help tremendously in the world of selling. After all, how do you deal with the prospect who won’t see you even though you had an appointment? How do you handle the long commute home after your customer has just torn into you for something over which you have no control?

Applying Mom’s instructions to selling means simply to prepare yourself to respond in a positive way to whatever the world can toss at you. When the prospect declines to keep her/his appointment, you have "found time" to contact new prospects, make follow up phone calls or simply get on with your life in some other, constructive way. Your response to the angry customer, because you’re prepared and don’t take it personally, is to listen for complete understanding of what went wrong. You assure him/her that you’ll look into it and report back. Then you follow through by addressing the situation, doing what you can to prevent it from recurring and respond to the customer as promised.

2. "Try it. You’ll like it." Mom was referring to that strangely colored food on my plate. I had never seen that before and didn’t want to take the chance on how it might taste. Those mashed potatoes with gravy were a safe bet, so I’d rather stick to those.

Mom knew that trying new things, such as that food, wouldn’t kill me. She also knew that trying new ideas, such as suggestions from my mentor, my sales manager or my customers, wouldn’t signal my demise.

You’ve seen and heard those tips on handling objections, on planning the sales call, on writing your sales goals for the week, month and year. You also know from experience that, when you’ve stepped out and tried something new, it has fallen far short of killing you. In fact, it probably helped you and you’ve forgotten how valuable it was to you at that time. As one client said to me, "I’ve forgotten more than I know." Get out of the rut. Go learn something new and give it a try.

3. "Do your homework first." Of all the after-school activities, homework was the least desirable. It was also the first to be done, before anything else could happen. Mom insisted on this one.

Mom knew that I enjoyed the class work and didn’t particularly care for the homework. She also realized the value of follow through and completing an assigned task. As unpleasant as the entire concept of homework was, it was a chore that I was glad to finish and even enjoyed a measure of accomplishment when I closed the books for the evening.

Paper work and other mundane tasks pale in comparison to the excitement of getting the order, making the presentation to the top executives and getting great referrals simply by asking for them. Nonetheless, it’s that paper work and follow through that makes the fun things possible. There’s also that momentary sense of accomplishment, brief as it may be, when you can pat yourself on the back (no straining, please), tell yourself, "Good job!" and get back to work.

4. "Be honest." Mom accepted nothing less than complete honesty. She also saw right through anything else. I believe she was the first to tell me that, when you don’t tell the truth, you’d better have a great memory so you could recall which creative story you had given to whom.

Mom had apparently seen plenty of examples where lying or stretching the truth hurt those who tried such tactics. It never seemed to work for me, either. In fact, I know of no one for whom it has worked. Oh, someone will get away with it now and again. It just always seems to return, usually when it’s least expected and can do the greatest damage.

Selling is a mirror of life in this sense, too. Lying to get the sale or the advance closer to the sale virtually always results in a major setback down the line. It’s not worth the trouble it can get you into, since the downside of dishonesty or stretching the truth is far greater than any gain you can make from it. It has been said that truth is symbolized as a mountain peak. Understand that, and you can easily see, as the famous quote says, "Any addition to the truth subtracts from it."

5. "Practice, practice, practice." Mom didn’t actually tell me this, because I was the only one of her three children not to take up an instrument. Both brothers, however, took guitar lessons and one also took piano lessons for a year or two. Mom knew that they would be ready for their next lesson only if they had learned from their last. Progress happened more between the lessons than it did during the lessons.

Practice, practice, practice in selling means perfecting your craft. You get better at selling by selling, by going through the activities required to identify, find and meet prospects, to learn and fill their needs with your offering and to convince them that the value you bring is far greater than the investment you want in return for it.

6. "If you cross your eyes, they’ll stay that way." I’m not sure that Mom really believed this one, but she certainly acted as if she did. This was a fun way to get a laugh from a playmate. On the other hand, I had seen a child or two whose eyes appeared to be crossed permanently. Fearing that Mom might just be right on this one, I obeyed for the most part. On those infrequent occasions when I risked it, I would cross my eyes only for a moment or two.

While I doubt that Mom was trying to pass along some eternal wisdom, I know that a habit started early and practiced regularly can be very difficult to discontinue. After you’ve sold a certain way for a long time, you may find it particularly challenging to change your course, get out of old habits and move into a new way of learning customers’ needs or managing your sales territory. If you see yourself getting into poor habits of selling or managing your sales time, find a way to change them now, before they become set in stone.

7. "Stand up for what you think is right." I once refused to do a school assignment, which had been given as a punishment to the entire class for the misbehavior of one or two students. Since I wasn’t one of the offenders, I considered this an injustice and staged a silent, one-child protest. My teacher couldn’t have me setting such an uncooperative example in her classroom, so she sent me to the principal’s office. I recall Mom coming to school and speaking with my teacher. She was very empathetic and encouraged me to do the assignment, which I eventually did. The biggest impression she made is that she didn’t correct me for what I hadn’t done. Instead, she rewarded me for what I had done, which was standing up for what I believed was right.

There’s a common mantra in business that the customer is always right. Don’t fall for that. Customers are unreasonable at times. When it happens, deal with it diplomatically. When your customer asks for the sun and the moon and wants delivery yesterday for no extra charge, listen closely and gently bring him or her back to reality. Commit to what you will do and then take measures to make sure it gets done. This gets much better results than over-promising and under-delivering.

8. "You can do it." Mom didn’t see herself as a motivational speaker or inspirational leader. (She was glad when she could get us to cooperate long enough to do our chores around the house.) Yet she was very encouraging and supported each of us in our desires for the future. She truly believed that once our minds were set on something, we could accomplish virtually anything. She also expected that some of what we were shooting for would be difficult at best.

Mom must have known that we had a choice between settling for whatever life would serve up and moving confidently in the direction of our dreams. She always wanted the best for her boys and did whatever she could to bring that to reality. Sometimes all she could do was encourage and hope for the best.

In this sense, selling provides the same opportunities as life. You can go as far as you want to go in selling, as long as you’re willing to do whatever it takes. As one of those many "secrets" to success, if you’re simply willing to do whatever it takes, you rarely have to do everything it takes to reach your objective. You can do it, by setting a clear goal, learning what you need to learn and sticking with it.

Thanks, Mom.

John Carroll is President/CEO of Unlimited Performance, a Mt. Pleasant, SC, firm focused on organizational and individual performance improvement. Brian Tracy International, a worldwide network of consultants, has recognized him for sales excellence. Contact him at 1-800-672-4277 toll-free, email at jcarroll@uperform.com, fax at (843) 881-6746.

© 1999 John Carroll All rights reserved.