Two experienced salesmen. One started off at the tender age of 8 by selling potholders, the other despised cold-calling. Read about how they blossomed into stellar salesmen.
At the end of the year 2003, when the tech world came down, unaware of any of it, I had to decide between two tech sales jobs — One with a major firm in Texas as a remote sales rep and another with a very new firm in India as a sales executive, to experiment selling to Silicon Valley companies from India. As lucrative as the first one was, I chose the latter because it seemed more exciting. I had to sell to Americans with this heavy Indian accent of mine. Voice will crackle through broken headsets and mics. Ears ached as I held broken headsets onto my earlobes as they won’t be replaced within three months.I didn’t believe in cold calling and now I hated it. It seemed futile. After 6 months, I was termed as a non-performer. The talks were brewing about my termination. That day, we had an office anniversary party. I couldn’t enjoy the party. I was going to get fired after the party. They made us watch Glengarry glen ross. The next day came, and fortunately for me, there were worse non-performers. They gave me a chance. I took it as a challenge. I worked the phone, often more than a hundred times a day! Often, I did so even on days when I hadn’t slept due to rains flooding our home. 6 months later, I became the top performer for that year. The only difference this time was, I believed in cold calling. I believed in my skills. I believed that the pen is worth selling. Today, I’m the Chief Business Officer for an American company. I still do cold calling whenever time permits.
~Anubkumar Dharmabalan, Tech affinity
I was diagnosed with polio when I was 4 months old. I considered myself fortunate because I didn’t know what it was like to not have polio. People always gave me a second look and it felt like I was constantly on display. I got picked last for baseball games and even if I did, I always had somebody who’d hold my crutches and another person who ran for me. So, I’ve always known what rejection feels like. My mother used to knit potholders and I went door to door selling them. I was unfazed by rejections. I always went around my neighbourhood asking people to buy what I sell. After a lot of rejections, one woman was nice enough to give me a tip “Lloyd, don’t ask them to buy what you sell. Ask them if they’d be nice to enough to lend you an ear”. That was my first sales lesson and that made a huge difference in how I sold.
~ Lloyd Lofton, American Eagle Consultants
People in Sales is PipeCandy’s initiative. We talk to Salespeople all over the world and listen to their stories, their ups and downs and share it with you. If you want to be a part of it, drop a mail to ashwini@pipecandy.com and we’ll take it forward from there.
