Winning Against The Competition
By Adam
Radzik
Marketing & Sales Coach
(Scene: Adam Radzik, the sales coach, has been asked to address a lunch meeting of partners at a professional firm. There are thirty-five people in the room.)
 The story, the parable, has always been among the finest methodologies for getting a point across. People are fascinated with stories. Americans are watching more than fifteen hours of stories each week on their televisions. All kinds of stories: funny stories, dramatic stories, soap opera stories. And, we all like to go the movies to watch more stories. Whenever you want to make a point that you want people to remember, utilize a story. Whether you are giving a speech or making a sales pitch, and in general, whenever you are trying to persuade.
Having said that let me tell you one of my favorite stories about selling. I was the keynote speaker for a ten-seminar series that was being given to a variety of professionals on the subject of selling. We would meet once a month in an upscale restaurant and I would give a talk on an element of selling, and the participants would share with the audience how they had utilized the information they had learned from me in the previous session.
An accountant stood up and said, “Adam, you will be very proud of me. Last week you spoke about being assertive, so I decided to approach my gas station for some business.” (The sales targets of the group were much more ambitious than a neighborhood gasoline station, but of course we didn’t interrupt him.)
“I got my car filled up, and as I was paying the man I asked him, ‘Are you the owner?’ He said he was. I told him I filled up my Toyota at his Mobil station twice a week. The owner looked at me and said, ‘Yes, you and 2,000 other people.’ I added that I also got my oil changed there and had bought two tires from him. The owner looked at me confused. ‘Thank you, but why are you telling me this?’ I responded by saying that since I patronized his business he should think about patronizing mine, and explained that I was an accountant. ‘Have you had other gas stations as clients?’ he queried. I said I had one over in Chatham a few years before. ‘Was it Rocco at the Getty station?’ I said that it was. ‘And are you still doing work for Rocco?’ I admitted that I wasn’t. ‘So you have the accounting experience of having worked with one gas station, and you’d like me to consider using you as my accountant?’ I nodded, with a smile on my face.”
“He said, ‘Well, let me tell you who I use. I use Loviglio and Seeley over in West Orange. They have more than forty gas stations as clients, and they know every single oil company, and their contracts and terms, by heart. Do you think you could compete with them?’ The conversation was over. I was an amateur who was faced with experts. I learned from that interaction that I would have to select specific industries, become a master at them, and focus my practice, as opposed to having one of these and one of those.”
The accountant sat down. The room was quiet.
I took a deep breath. “Well, ladies and gentlemen, I think we have just heard a very powerful lesson about selling. I wish you a good day!” Everybody mumbled their agreement, quietly filed out of the meeting room, and thought about how they could also become masters.
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Excerpt from CD Set: Quick Advice on Improving Our Relationships
Chapter One: Partner Management – 33 Principles
Every relationship must have rules or anarchy will prevail.
Let us examine several relationships to determine if this principle is a valid one.
What if a boss didn’t have rules about when employees were expected to show up at work?
What if a teacher didn’t have rules about when the homework assignment would be due?
What if a wife didn’t give her husband rules about where and with whom he could spend his evenings?
What if the FAA didn’t have rules about the types of objects that could be brought onboard an airplane?
What if a father had no rules prohibiting young children from driving the family minivan?
The answers are self-evident.
Every relationship is a mini-society that must have rules in hundreds of areas – from who is responsible for what to how the money can be spent to until what time you can play your radio at night.
In my relationship-training work, I suggest that partners create and maintain a rule book that memorializes the agreed-upon rules.
Often, when relationships fail it is because there is an absence of rules or because the rules have not been honored.
Comedy Corner
Heard at work.
The fact that no one understands you doesn’t mean you’re an artist.
Who me? I just wander from room to room.
It might look like I’m doing nothing, but at the cellular level I’m really quite busy.
I see you’ve set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public.
Someday we’ll look back on this, laugh nervously, and hurriedly change the subject.
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