Learning New Products to Sell
Apprehensive about selling a product you know nothing about to people you don’t know? It can be done!
A specific career in business was undecided through college but hard work and common sense was noted by several mentors who opened doors to different businesses where all challenges were met.
DM was an only child who grew up in a small town in suburban Philadelphia. His father was a payroll clerk for Sunoco; his mother was a stay-at-home homemaker.
ONE INDIVIDUAL’S COLLEGE CHOICE FACTORS
DM graduated from a high school senior class of only 79 students, so he felt more comfortable getting to know people within a small setting. Accordingly, he chose to attend a relatively small college in a rural setting with total enrollment of about 1700.
EARLY CAREER DIRECTION
For his college freshman year, most courses were required as introduction to a broader range of education topics (history, language, math or economics, science, religion) before having to choose a major course of study by junior year. DM opted to be a business major toward a career interest in “business management.”
FIRST JOB NOT BINDING AS A FINAL CAREER PATH
Upon college graduation, DM accepted a position with a large, industrial producer and retailer of fuel products (Atlantic-Richfield / ARCO) because its recruiter described the training program as interesting, though a new hire would have to start at the retail level to learn the basics of sales before being able to manage others within the sales department. However, within only two months, DM found his basic tasks of pumping gas and cleaning windshields at company gas stations to be repetitive and boring, with no mention from his supervisors of assuming more responsibilities soon.
DM later learned that he was one of 15 management trainees to promptly quit the program which had initially enrolled 30 recent college graduates. The career paths of the remaining 15 is unknown but presumably some were either able to cope with the boredom until promotion to positions of more responsibility or they lacked motivation to achieve promotion and were content to remain bored in exchange for a modest salary.
BUSINESS RISK #1
When DM resigned from his management trainee position, he did not have a new job and he was already married with a young child. But (1) he believed his college degree and willingness to work hard would open another career door and (2) his wife was a full-time employee who provided both encouragement and a regular salaried income for them to at least pay their bills until DM secured a better employment opportunity.
MENTORS
To begin to meet this first business challenge, DM asked an adult with business experience for advice. The adult was DM’s father-in-law (Mentor #1), who suggested that DM meet with a business friend who was the President of a medium size company (Mentor #2) which distributed commercial printing products, to discuss the overall job market for recent college graduates.
The meeting with the father-in-law’s friend (Mentor #2) was not scheduled to be a job interview but DM’s determination to work hard and do what was necessary to learn how to be a good salesman when he found the right opportunity, became evident to the President of the company, who suggested that DM meet with the owner of a different small company (Mentor #3) which distributed the products of Mentor #2’s company. Following that second meeting, DM was hired by Mentor #3 as a sales representative (“sales rep”) for a base monthly salary plus a percentage of commissions.
Mentor #3 began to teach DM various sales techniques, the most important of which included (1) knowing your product inside and out and (2) listening to your prospective customer to understand their needs and concerns.
Utilizing Mentor #3’s advice and working hard to build sales relationships with new and prospective customers, DM was soon earning sales commissions more than doubling his base salary. As a result of DM’s personal sales success, the small distributorship became the top producing distributorship in the country. Then its parent company purchased the regional distributorship, moved DM’s mentor (#3) to National Sales Manager and promoted DM to Manager of the local office.
DM’s success at sales and managing other sales employees became his consistent record of success at each higher level of sales area and competition: The company’s Los Angeles office covered the #1 nationwide market for potential customers of these printing products, but it was only ranked 14th among the company’s sales offices.
BUSINESS RISK #2: DM was asked to move to Los Angeles to take over sales management there and agreed upon condition that he need to remain there for only two years since DM continued to prefer small town living rather than big city living. When DM took over the LA sales office, he moved its sales production to #1 in the nation for its type of product.
BUSINESS RISK #3: Turning around the LA office led to an opportunity for managing the New York City office, where DM’s efforts again increased sales there. However, DM became increasingly concerned about the personal drudgery of daily commuting from Philadelphia to New York City.
BUSINESS RISK #4: While DM was becoming concerned about wasting so much time commuting, his former mentor (#3) had started a new business and asked DM to become its National Sales Manager. This new position was interesting and well compensated at the outset but DM’s business motivation was not matched by the same level of enthusiasm of others with whom he had to work within the company so DM mentioned his concerns to his old mentor, who recommended that DM speak with another gentleman (mentor #4) involved in sales of a different type of product (communications instead of printing) but many of the sales techniques would be transferrable skills. DM thought this would be a better, long-term opportunity so he accepted the new career opportunity as Sales Manager of “EX” Company’s Philadelphia region despite a lesser, starting compensation package. But DM by then had confidence in his abilities and the sales potential of the product so he “bet on himself” and as so often happens, his hard work and common sense met the challenge: DM’s management efforts increased sales (by triple), which produced more financial reward for the business and for DM personally.
BUSINESS RISK #5: Eventually DM was able to buy a percentage of ownership in a related business of managing sales for communications equipment. He used his experience and common sense to win bids over his competition and was able to retire when he sold his ownership interest for a significantly increased value achieved by DM’s sales management.
MENTOR RECIPIENT BECOMES MENTOR PROVIDER
Following DM’s retirement from full-time business, he had both the experience and now the time to “give back” to others as a part-time business consultant to folks just getting started in the sales business.
Lessons learned by DM: With self-motivation to succeed in business despite a small town, small school background, a sales trainee willing to (1) learn all about the product to be sold and (2) listen to folks he had never met, can succeed by hard work and taking a few business risks. If you have a reasonable business plan based on your personal experience and advice from a mentor plus high motivation to succeed, bet on yourself to meet any challenges. That bet has been won by many folks, many times before.
