I learned the value of two traits - persistence and focus - from a 90-year-old home-bound sales rep in the late 1990's.
I had been given a specific area of revenue management at the newspaper where I was employed and that area of responsibility included Mrs. Altie.
The day I took over, Altie was 90. She could not drive - 100 percent of her sales were by phone only. And she had no base and no draw - she was straight 10 percent commission. And she worked half the week - all day Monday and Wednesday (8-5, one hour for lunch and one hour of "admin" so 7 hours of calling) and until noon on Friday - because Friday afternoon was quilting time at church.Despite the limitations, and there were others, she was one heck of a productive advertising sales representative.
Why? I think Altie exhibited two traits that are sometimes missing these days.
Here's a story. I received a call one day from a car dealer. He wanted to place several half-page ads. I forget the number - it was four or six. And then he said "I want Mrs. Altie to get the commission." Looking at the revenue, I certainly was not going to argue, but I asked "why?" His response? "She has called me every Wednesday afternoon for a year and a half."
Point number 1: Altie was persistent. She stayed after it no matter what. The only way to get her to stop calling you was to flat out tell her to never call again. And sometimes that only bought you a short break.
Another advertiser told me once that if he said "try me again in a couple weeks" three-fourths of reps would not call him back. He said Mrs. Altie would call back two weeks later, sometimes to the hour.
But there was another trait.
When our high school won the state basketball championships, I asked her to sell congratulations ads..."as many as you can." She sold 96 ads. When I said "Altie, how did you sell 96 ads?" Her answer was amazingly simple. "I called every business in the yellow pages."
Point number 2: Altie had intense focus. She had a day helper/nurse who would come in and clean, cook, etc. The nurse one day told me that the worst mistake family or friends could make during Altie's "work time" was to call or visit. Altie refused to deal with any personal matters during her sales time. In this age of Facebook and cell phones, how many of us can honestly say we maintain this level of focus on our jobs, whether or not sales are involved?
I remember taking her some things one Tuesday, and looking at a piece of paper on her TV tray that served as a desk. It had 100 - that's right, 100 - names and phone numbers on it. I asked her what this was.
"Tomorrow's call list," was her answer. Again, that was 100 names. She said a good rep working a phone only should do a call every five minutes - that's 84 in a seven-hour day. It was rare to see her really grin big, and this was one of them. She grinned and said, "But I'm not good, so I get in a hundred."
An amazing phone salesman. Period.
Questions to ask yourself:
How persistent are you? Do you give up easily? Do you work, claw and fight for every dollar? Do you refuse to take no for an answer? Do you always follow up?
How focused are you? Do you have the ability to crank down and make 20 or 30 in-person calls or twice that many telephone calls in one day? Do you keep the personal calls to a bare minimum? If sales is your primary function, do you honestly put in seven or even six hours of calling a day?
None of us are perfect by a long shot, and I include myself in that
list. These are areas we all fall short on in some way.
For some reason,
though, I got to thinking about Mrs. Altie recently and examined why I thought she was so bloody successful. Perseverance and focus are the two reasons I came up with, and I simply
wanted to share this with you. She is long gone, having died about 10
years ago, but perhaps her work traits can inspire each of us.