Chapter 1. My penny finally
dropped
|
The Devil tells a
salesman, "Look, I can make you richer, more
famous, and
more successful than any salesman alive. In fact, I
can
make you the greatest salesman that ever lived."
“Well,” says the
salesman, “what do I have to do in return?”
The Devil smiles, “Of
course, you have to give me your soul,” he
says, “but you
also have to give me the souls of your children, the
souls
of your children's children and, as a matter of fact, you
have
to give me the souls of all your descendants
throughout eternity.”
“Wait a minute,” the
salesman says cautiously, “What's the
catch?”
|
The salesman in the joke above is me
some 13 years ago, except that then it was no joke at all. It was
how I used to do my little monkey sales business.
I would do anything to get a sale. In fact I
even bought a few books on hypnosis, as my biggest fantasy at that
time was to hypnotize a prospect and then sell him/her piles of
useless stuff. And if I could do mass hypnosis and sell even more
useless stuff, that would probably have made me walk on
air.
Little did I care about anything as long as I
had my precious sales. I knew only that I had to be aggressive,
persistent and be able to handle objections well. It was not a very
soft way of selling. I was all action, and believed that this was
the way to succeed.
It took me years to understand that there
could be another way, that there is no need to cut anybody’s throat
in order to get my sales, and that it can naturally come to me if I
follow certain spiritual principles.
As I learned more about these spiritual
principles, I started to see that selling could be completely
different. Now, in retrospect, I realize that it finally dawned upon
me after I made a fantastic sale to a large multi-national company.
The sale was simultaneously to this company’s
eight international offices, and it brought me a very nice
commission. Most notably, it took no effort on my part to sell them.
In fact, I never even attempted to sell them anything.
I still remember that day when I was at the
Telecom exhibition in Singapore, standing next to the stand of the
company where I used to work. I was just relaxing after having spent
the whole morning running around and giving brochures to potential
clients.
Someone passed by and asked me a totally
irrelevant question. Since I always loved talking to people, we
started a conversation. I think we spoke about dating or the best
places to go out in Singapore.
Then after some time, he asked me what we
sell. I did not want to switch topic, but I reluctantly told him
that we make smart machines that can help big companies solve their
network problems. I explained how they work and why they are often
necessary.
He looked interested and said, “Oh, I didn’t
know that you make protocol analyzers.”
Then he asked me to wait half an hour and soon
came with another guy. They told me about a specific problem in
their network and asked if our product could help them. I
showed them what our product could do for their issue.
Then the second guy, who conveniently turned
out to be a Vice President of Operations of that multi-national,
said that in three weeks they have an annual meeting of their Asian
offices and it would be nice if I could come and present my product
to all of them.
“Sure”, I said. “Just tell me where and
when.”
Their annual meeting happened to take place on
a Monday, on the beautiful
island of Phuket, Thailand. This is
not a place where I would normally have any business. It is like
going on a fully paid trip to Hawaii to meet a prospect.
Actually I just had a vacation there a few
months ago and loved every minute of it. And now they were asking me
to come there on business!
Three weeks later I spent the most wonderful
weekend in Phuket, and was ready for a presentation. What was
supposed to take an hour turned into a four-hour discussion. The
result was that they wanted my products. In fact, there was even an
argument about which office would get the product first.
During next couple of weeks we finalized the
details and I got the purchase order.
What was conspicuous about this whole sale was
that despite many things I did with other potential clients, this
one came to me on its own. It led me to look at every major sale or
success I had, and I noticed that many of them came when I was
making the least effort. It was becoming evident to me that things
can be very different.
This book is what I wish somebody had given me
somewhere along my journey. Probably it was not meant for me to
receive it. It seems that my soul had chosen to go through many
different stages and experiences of sales reality, and then to
arrive at a more spiritual perspective on sales.
This book is the culmination of my quest for a
spiritual approach to selling and manifesting abundant reality.
The book can help you make your sales life
easier, more abundant and certainly more joyful.
The tools and exercises offered here are very
powerful, and are only limited in their impact by your willingness
to put them into practice! I wish you a wonderful transformation
from your reality today to your amazing sales reality of
tomorrow.
