Another week has come to an end and there are just a couple of random thoughts bouncing around this sarcastic mind of mine this Friday afternoon.
This week I had two voice mails left for me. That’s two more than all of last year or close to it. Does anyone else get confused and a little annoyed when people leave voice mail messages?
It feels like I am getting a message from somewhere back in history. Maybe it’s future me calling to warn me of some impending doom. Hmm…maybe I should start taking those calls. And, maybe if you want to get a hold of me, maybe change your screen name...anything but "Unknown Caller" would increase your answer rate by at least 50% or more I am sure.
Do people really use voice mail anymore?
We know that 80% of calls go to voice mail. We know that in recent years that less than 5% of those voice mails will receive a return call. It takes an average of eight calls to reach a prospect. (salesforce.com)
I mean haven’t we all thought, "You have my mobile number, just text me."
Text messaging is the way people want to communicate today. In fact, 93% trust text messaging as a communication channel and their open rates at as high as 98%.
This stat alone explains why phishing scams are so routine on text messaging in my opinion.
As a funny aside, Americans / Canadians send 150 million text a day to landline numbers that are not text enabled. Talk about getting the wrong number, you are literally trying to get dogs to talk to cats at that point.
In a completely random ADHD kind of way, I am now going rapidly switch topics.
This week I happened to be channel surfing and landed on the last 80 minutes or so of the (insert your own adjective) sales movie “Glengarry Glen Ross” by the great David Mamet.
There is not one redeemable character in that entire movie. That’s what I like about it.
However, the movie got me thinking about how salespeople are always portrayed as shady, say anything for the sale losers, the likes of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, or Ernest Tilly in Tin Men and to the satirical extreme, Gil Gunderson on The Simpson’s.
The other profile for a salesperson in film is that of slick polished hustler. Blake from the film Glengarry Glen Ross, the eternally cool Paul Newman as “Fast” Eddie Felson in the Color of Money or a more current reference; Jordon Belfort and Donnie Azoff in the Wolf of Wall Street. Again, not a lot of redeemable characters in any of these films.
Why is that?
It’s not to say that through the years the salespeople I’ve known were all angels. I have worked with or met an individual that could be cast as almost every salesperson persona portrayed in the above-mentioned movies.
Still without any doubt I can tell you that the majority of the salespeople I have met are among the most creative problem solvers, great people to talk to and learn from but also the most of wonderful storytellers.
With that said, may people often mistake having a gift for the gab as an asset when being a salesperson. Any good salesperson will tell you that the best salespeople say no more than they must and listen twice as much as they speak.
"The trouble isn’t that you don’t like talking to salespeople, it’s you don’t like talking to poor salespeople and unfortunately there are many of them." is often how I respond to those who tell me how much they hate talking to sales people.
As I said, there are far more people in sales that are not suited for sales, and most poor salesmanship comes from a lack of training so it's not always their ability it's the circumstance.
I always like the telemarketer who calls and gets through his entire sales pitch before I can tell him I don’t own my home.
Everyone has had a salesperson approach them and say, “Can I help you?” to which the answer is of course, “Why, and I bleeding?” or the car salesperson who steps away to get a better price, returns smelling like a airport smoking lounge from the 2000’s at O’Hare and tells us he was only able to get $200 off when the only thing clear, including the air around him was that he had a $200 limit of his discretionary envelope and he went for a smoke or two while he left my wife and I waiting at a desk.
We have all had bad experiences with salespeople through the years, I am sure. People don’t often talk about the good experiences they have with salespeople, but they do happen…how else would the economy move forward.
Here is a quick summary of some of the best sales movies ever in my opinion.
