Life Insurance Legend Ben Feldman On Tape For Free.

Steve;
It reminds me of the best furniture salesman I ever met. It was at a Levin's Furniture store in Canton Ohio.

It was in 2008 when nobody was buying furniture. My wife and I walked in to the store...there were maybe ten salespeople, milling around, talking to each other.

We asked to see the best salesperson. The woman at the counter said that it was Dan Stevens, and he was with the only other customer in the store. I asked if he was the best salesman there. She said "Honey, he's the best salesman in the world". I had to talk to Dan.

We went in to buy an end table. Ours needed replaced. i figured we would spend about $300. We walked out after spending about $30,000 on new furniture.

Dan was about 60 years old, walked with a limp, was soft spoken...and held me spellbound for about 2 hours. After we left the store, I took notes in the car for about 15 minutes. My wife is a saint for putting up with my obsession.

No hard sell, no "alpha male" nonsense...just excellence in selling. Here's a short video where I talk about it.

Ha! That almost describes me...
Jeans and tee shirt all the way... mumbler extraordinaire... Forgetful... Muffs his lines...

Nothing like much of the advice on this forum...

When I sold life insurance, I wore a suit, because everyone in he business wore a suit. And I was young and dumb...and thought it would make me look more substantial.

When I had an office and had salespeople working for me, I wore a white dress shirt and black slacks...and black shiny steel toed shoes. In fact, my wardrobe consisted of about a dozen identical shirts, and a dozen pairs of identical slacks.

I looked like a Mormon.

But all the years I sold by myself in people's homes, it was jeans and whatever was comfortable. Even though it was public contact work, my conduct said more than anything I wore.

You know a lot more than you think you do.

One of the biggest mistakes I made when I first started training salespeople was showing them a presentation when I was in full selling mode.The first time I did it, a mentor was siting in the room. At the end of the training, I was sure everyone would come back the next day, eager to sell this product they were all so excited about.

My mentor told me "None of them are coming back. Everyone that was here is now thinking "I could never do what he does"". He was right, none of them came back...out of about 40 people. None.

This was 30 years ago or so. I learned to mute the "salesmanship". Like a new actor that ruins every scene because he is "acting". And the old pros are subtle. Every expression says more than the line they speak.

Rather than a performance (although with me it's still a performance), I learned to make it a conversation...between two people with the same goal.

Ben Feldman? My furniture salesman? Me? They (we) have learned how to be conversational, low key, soft spoken, and we don't hide our flaws.

But beneath it all, we know what works, and what doesn't. And no matter how much we sound like we just aren't interested in selling, but just want to talk...underneath it all is a drive to get the sale.

I like to think of it as the customer and I are walking in a field, and the grade is only a few degrees sloping toward one point...the sale. And even if we wander around the field, slowly, we get closer to the center....because gravity and the grading of the ground...pulls us in.

And at the end of my active selling life, in a retail store...I hear this an average of two times a day... "You know, we didn't come in here expecting to buy a vacuum cleaner".

The best selling, like the best acting...is invisible.

Smart. Yes, always work with what you have....Don't "Fake it till you make it". Everything about you is an asset, if used well..this is important enough for me to start another thread, I think. Thanks for the inspiration.