Sales War Stories

You have them.

I have them too.

We all have our favorite “war stories” of our years in the selling profession.  We like to sit around at sales meetings, or at our favorite “watering hole” after a sales meeting and share our tales.  The longer we have been in the profession, the more we love to entertain the younger sales people with our tough clients, mistakes and funny stories.

I remember running into a particularly unpleasant gentleman on a hot Monday morning in Atlanta, Georgia when I was in the industrial uniform industry.  I walked into his place of business and had gotten no more than my name and my company name out of my mouth when he began a rant.

“I don’t like you *&%$#@! sales people!  And you UNIFORM sale people are the *&%$#@! worst! You are all dishonest and all owned by the mafia!”

The man was swearing and yelling at me with a true passion.

Now, before you read the rest of this, I have to tell you that I absolutely do NOT recommend this as a sales technique.  I was very young and quite brash at times.  But I have often used my sense of humor to handle difficult situations.

In the middle of his rant, I began to smile and laugh a little.

He stopped in the middle of his own sentence and said, “Boy. How can you be laughing in the middle of the &%$#@! chewing I just gave you?”

I smiled and said, “My boss told me when he hired me that if I didn’t run  into at least one *%&#@! per week I was not working hard enough.  And I got you out of the way on my very first day!”

I kept that smile pasted on my face, and he knew I really meant no harm.  I knew he was going to either laugh, or throw me out and call my boss.  Fortunately, he took the first option.

One of my favorite bloggers, Jill Konrath, posted one of her sales mistakes that I thought was funny.  I hope you enjoy it too.

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