How many of us have watched the movie Tommy Boy starring David Spade and the late Chris Farley? I watched it last night for the 30th time since its release in 1995. Each time I watch this movie, I find it funnier and funnier. Most of us today, recognize this as a comedy but also a sales movie. My job is 100% sales. While I laugh at this movie, the pure fact is that there is a lot we can take away from this movie. We can all benefit from a bit of sales training.
Tommy Boy is a movie about the world’s most unlikely
brake pad salesman. We learn a few things about him throughout the movie. For
one, it took him seven years to finish his undergraduate degree. Second, he
commonly refers to John Hancock as Herbie Hancock. Finally, he’s overweight,
clumsy and always wears a clip-on tie. His dad could “sell a ketchup popsicle
to a women in white gloves”, but old Tommy Boy is lacking in these skills.
After
the death of Tommy Boy Sr, the family business is in need of some major sales.
In desperation, Tommy Boy is sent on the road to make the annual sales
trip. Tommy Boy and his road companion
Richard Hayden had a lot of no’s, before they finally learn to make the sales
stick. Here are a few things I learned from this unorthodox sales team and I
bet you can apply it to your company too.
Stand Behind Your Product
“Hey,
if you want me to take this box and mark it guaranteed… I will. I got spare
time. But for now, for your customer’s sake, for your daughter’s sake, ya might
wanna think about buying a quality product from me”.
One
of Tommy’s first big sales is hallmarked by this great quote surrounding the
guarantee on the outside of the box. According to the purchaser, a guarantee
makes a man feel all warm inside. As a salesman, it is impossible to really be
effective unless you have a true passion for what you are selling, even if that
passion takes some time to develop. Buyers can sense when you are wary. In
sales, we have to be able to stand confidently behind the products we are
selling. For me, working at the Conference
Group, this is easy. As most of you
know, I’ve spent the past 23 years working in Telecom. I’ve sold phone systems, hardware, firmware,
VoIP, T1’s, POTS.. you name it and the one thing I found with each product is
problems. 80% of my time was spent
fixing provisioning nightmares… and you know it’s out there. I don’t care what company you are selling and
how well they pay. Bottom line is there
are problems. I can say coming to the Conference Group
for the past year, I have had ZERO customer service, provisioning or commission
problems. I can say that I stand 200%
behind our products and services. Can you?
Build Trust
“You’re
right! You’re not your dad! He could sell a ketchup Popsicle to a woman in
white gloves!”
One
of the most important roles of sales is getting your buyer to put their trust
in you. At one point during the movie, Richard tells Tommy Boy that their
buyers aren’t purchasing brake pads, they are purchasing them. He was right.
Customers do business with people they like, know, and trust. Building trust
with them on and off the sales floor is crucial for long term success. TCG has been very successful in building
trust with our agents. The most
successful Agents for us allow us to interact pre-sales and post-sales with
their clients. We have built a book of Partners that have been with us for the longevity and are successful in what they
do. I hope in the next year, you too
will become one of those agents!
Think Strategically
“EXCUSE
ME!…… This will only take a minute!”
The
climax of the movie takes place when Tommy Boy convinces his fiercest
competitor to purchase 500,000 of his brake pads. The sale saves the company,
and certainly wasn’t accomplished without a lot of ingenuity. Tommy’s contrived
plan included a news crew, a lot of duct tape, and even a few road flares. It
required some strategic thinking that leveraged his strengths, and his
competitor’s weaknesses. In sales, we need to be smart and we need to be
strategic. How will purchasing our products strategically help the person we
are selling to? With TCG, our strategy
is to bring our agents products that will enable their clients to be more
productive, save time and also save them money. The Conference Group does this with a suite of services such as web collaboration, video
conferencing, audio conferencing, and mobile apps. We have
targeted products that will benefit your customer and most importantly we’ve
done so at a competitive price while delivering high quality audio, video and
web services. Our successful agents have
done the same thing with their portfolio.
They are not going into their clients with just one product. To be successful in telecom today, you have
to know the industry and where it is going.
Let me help you when it comes to
your clients audio conferencing, web conferencing and video conferencing! I’ve said it many times and I will continue
to tell you- if you aren’t selling conferencing, your competition is!
- Caroline
caroline.rogers@conferencegroup.com
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