Great short story...

Two things to mention...

If this is true, then you have a lot to learn about a lot of things...starting with common sense.

Secondly, make sure your next career choice is not a door to door anything....

Ever considered a career in copywriting?

The store owners was an ***...

I have had some pretty bad experience too, like getting screamed in a bank by a bank manager in front of hundreds of people (some of which personally knew me) and what for because it was my first time and I didn't know the procedure for opening a bank account.

Like you I thought I am never going to any bank ever again, but I did and I do almost very often. With time your emotional scars will heal.

If you want to feel worthy while cold calling, either start with people you know or only personally visit prospects who have shown interest and have set a meeting on a phone call. That way you will be pretty much sure about whom you are dealing with.

call the cops and do the dickhead for assault.

OK so now serious, I think you're made for door to door,
most people would have given up long before you did, you hung in there and kept trying, good on you, the fact you were trying to communicate to a retard with a pig of a wife isn't your fault, you done great, chin up, be proud, don't let the inbreds get you down

What, are you kidding? This is FANTASTIC! It would be even better if he had let a Doberman out and you had to run! Come on, you can't buy these stories. Assuming it's true, wear it like a badge of honor. Heck, tell it even if it's not true--it's a great yarn. I can hear you know telling this story with all the different voice inflections: "I'm here to improve your sales!"

Every real salesperson has a story or two like this.

Now here's what you do: Go back at another time LIKE NOTHING HAPPENED. Act as cool as a cucumber.

Congratulations--you'll tell this story the rest of your life over Jack Daniels and cigars, laughing until tears roll down your cheeks onto your expensive suit.

Well it can't get any worse...can it?

addendum to my previous post, you know how to get him more sales, so you surely know how to ensure he loses many sales.

Now the local papers would love this story, names ,pictures and all, the local radio would love to hear and broadcast it, hell it might even go national/ viral. Does his business have any review site listings, hello, you went in there in good faith and that's the reception you got, you need to share that on every review site and throughout relevant (harmful) social media, you owe it to his potential customers to tell them what he can be like.

Then send a card to his wife saying 'get a proper man, bitch, the one you have is a loser' as their profits fall and they go bankrupt and sell the Cadillac ;-)

You can destroy him if you wish, or move on and laugh about it

The copy-writing suggestion above is right on the mark, well written!

"Not my market."

Lol miscer?

As someone already said...it can't get any worse.

So if that's the WORSE that can happen (and I'm pretty
sure it is) then you really don't have anything to worry
about do you.


Looking at your writing skill it would seem to make sense
for your first contact with business owners to be direct
mail or email.

That way you can get them calling you.

That's a whole lot more fun.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

Hmm.

The prospect TOLD YOU right away that it was a bad time.

You didn't listen.

Then, when asked why you were there, you gave some generic answer that no matter how quietly you mumbled it, screamed "HERE COMES A SALESPERSON!" The last person he wants to see at that moment.

No surprise you got what you did. These people are a particularly special kind of jerks, but you ignored the warnings.

CageyVet was completely correct about the common sense that could have been used in this situation.

Next time, "Wow, seems like you're having a bad day. ...Any chance you'd be open to talking about it, and us seeing if we can find a way out of it? It's sorta 'what I do'."

Not that I recommend talking to people who are having a bad day. But if you must, that's the way to go about doing it, for future reference. Not "I'm here to try and sell you something."

To say "Offline is not for me" after one experience, your FIRST experience, is pretty lame. "Dad, I fell off my bike the first time I tried to ride it; cycling's not for me." "Teacher, I didn't do this equation properly the first time I tried it; math isn't for me." Uh huh.

Now I suggest you take this experience and use it as the opener to your email copy.

Am I the only one here who thinks the OP was the jerk and not the business owner?

Sorry OP but you were in the wrong. There is no one to blame for what happened besides yourself.

The Store was closed!!! Just because there is activity inside it doesn't change that. You can't just walk into a closed store. I guess you could have knocked or stuck you head in and said "hello" but beyond that you had no business in that store. You're just lucky he didn't call the damn cops on you like I would have.

You have no idea what he was doing and where he had to be. You assumed that your need to sell was more important than his needs. You have a great future in sales. A great future in average sales that is. Way too many people in sales make it all about them. It should always be about the customer.

Next he asks you to leave (yes rudely but that is his choice) and you don't go. For all he knew you could be a robber. You ever been robbed in a store? Luckily I haven't but other stores in my district in the same metro area were multiple times. You don't mess around with people who come in after close because you forgot to lock the door. When someone tells you to leave you better damn well leave. Especially when you are in the wrong. No one is going to buy from someone who doesn't respect them.

Then he asks what you are doing there and instead of answering right away you walk further into the building. First you need to realize that some people will actually shoot first in situations like this and depending on where you live they might not even get arrested for it. You are trespassing at this point in a major way.

Once again he asks you why you are in the store and tries to see if you simply didn't see the sign. Not sure what you yelled here as you didn't say but yelling never helps a situation. You can talk loudly without yelling. Or you know you could just leave since you have been told to.

Finally you meekly tell him you are here to help his sales. Do you truly believe he gave a crap at that point? You lost this sale the second you walked into a closed store. Now you refuse to leave because you want to improve his sales? Just leave!

Finally he has to forcibly remove you. Do you know how many people I have had to forcibily remove from the building over my management career? ZERO! I have never had someone so rude who would not leave. I've had to call the police on people who wouldn't leave my parking lot because someone told them that parking lots were public property. Which is false and the police removed them for me.

So what if you dropped your stuff. That is your problem. Shoe fell off? Get better shoes that stay on. They should have tossed your stuff out at you and when they didn't you could have called the cops to get it back. But none of this would have happened had you respected the business in the first place.

I am glad you got your stuff back. I suspect he saw the shoe fall off and kicked it out. And told his wife to throw the rest away so you could see it. Basically let you get it back but make you dumpster dive as his "revenge".

Now that you are outside instead of leaving you hang around out front. I know you were waiting for a ride (unprofessional BTW, next time arrange to be picked up away from the building) but you may have still technically been trespassing. Like I said before you are very lucky the guy was just mean to you instead of shooting you or calling the cops on you.

The reason they "had it in for you" is because you were rude as hell and didn't respect them or their business. Sounds like a reasonable reason to have it in for someone.

As for the part where he honked. The way I see it is at this point he sees that not only are you harmless but also in his eyes a bit pathetic. After all you were so desperate for a sale that you walked into a closed store. That doesn't sound confident that sounds desperate. Confident would have been coming back another time or knocking on the door to see if they might have time now or later to chat. So now that his fear of being robbed is passed and he can laugh he honks to get a reaction from you. Remember the reason people laugh is to put us and those around us at ease. So for him this was a way to put himself fully at ease at your expense.

I'm sorry but you need a dose of reality. The person in the wrong here was you. Period, end of story. Now he could have handled things a bit nicer but we have no idea why he did that. For all we know he got robbed five years ago in the exact way you just entered the building. Maybe his son got killed by that robber. Who knows.

What you do know is the only person you can control is yourself. And by staying in control of yourself and doing the right things you can avoid situations like this.

This isn't some cold walking horror story. This isn't a story about some prospect who unprovoked attacked you. Claude and others have shared true stories like that.

This is a story of a person who didn't respect others. A person who thought their needs & wants were more important than the business owners. A person who doesn't care what time it is.

Retail workers get mad when you walk in 5 to 10 mins before close. How do you think they feel when you walk in after close? Have you never worked a retail or restaurant job and had people come in late and make you miss getting somewhere important? It happens and it sucks when it is a paying customer. Sucks even worse when it turns out to be a stroker. But I can't imagine how much it would suck to have that person who was wasting my personal time be trying to sell me something.

Put yourself in their shoes. How would you have reacted?

I know myself I would have been calmer and nicer but I would have asked you to leave and when you did not I would have called the police.

Stop thinking this is some horror story. It isn't.
Stop making it out like you were the victim. You weren't.
Stop thinking that you are more important than your prospects. You're not.

You hopefully will learn a valuable lesson. One that the vast majority of sales people never learn.

Your wants, needs, and etc do not matter. If you want to make the sale all that matters is your prospect and their wants, needs, and etc.

Sadly based on this thread it's clear you haven't yet learned that lesson. But hopefully this thread, if enough people point out it was your fault, will help you come to that lesson.

And if you do learn that lesson this story will be the one you retell to young sales people you mentor. The tone will be different, of course, as you will tell it from the prospective that you were wrong but the story will be retold. And you will laugh when those same sales people come to you weeks, months, and even years later to tell you that you were right. They will tell you about the sales pitch that made them realize this point. And at that moment you will know they have stopped being an amateur and have become a true sales professional.

Looking back this will be the most valuable sales call in your career. Hell one day, a few years from now, you may even show up at that business again and hand that man a gift. He won't remember you but you will always remember him.

EDIT: Looks like as I was writing this Claude came in and said it much shorter and a bit harsher than I did.

Though if you learn the lesson you don't need to quit. Also not sure rather the story is true or not but decided to reply as if it were.

EDIT 2: I don't have one of these stories to tell because I was always a "natural". It was only later when I started managing people and trying to train them to sell that I started to realize that what was "common sense" to me was anything but to the average sales person.

You can't really blame them. The vast majority of sales managers and trainers teach people to close and that the commission, numbers, and profit is all that matters.

But in almost all cases the top 1 or 2 sales people in store, group, or etc will make way more than everyone else and yet be the ones least motivated by money. They will be the one to score the "bonus" you offer but not because they did more but merely because they did what they always do. It will be the average ones that work harder when they can earn a bonus. This is part of the reason why rewards above and beyond the normal pay structure don't need to be monetary.

Go back to the store and be fearless. LOL Apologize for being disrespectful for entering the store when it said "CLOSED" you'll get the best client ever after that.

Just a few suggestions if you plan on using this story for whatever reason. It's pretty good, but there are too many holes. Your readers or live audience will know right away, so don't try to gloss over them. The big one in my mind is when you looked in and didn't see anything except the intercom, and then

out of nowhere...literally couldn't tell where he came from

It's too big a jump to be believable. Smooth this story out and I think you have something. It would be even better if it was true, or partly true, but it's unlikely.

Still doesn't matter. Work out the kinks, and you've got a good tall tale.

Rus and Aaron already said exactly what I was going to say after reading your story - go back the next day and apologize. During business hours though, that way there are witnesses, lol.

Don't make your pitch. Just apologize.

Maybe the guy's a dick ... it sounds like it. Or maybe it was the worst day he's ever had and a salesman walking through the door after they had already closed up for the day was the straw that broke the camel's back.

If it's the former, he'll either tell you to get out again, or thank you for your apology and THEN tell you to get out again. But if it's the latter ... he might respect your courage to come back and apologize, and end up apologizing to YOU for how he handled things. Maybe even give you permission to pitch.

Although I doubt you'd want this guy as a customer... it's not so much that he threw you out of his shop, but the fact that he followed you in his car after you were already out? The dude isn't exactly stable.

But you should still apologize.

Hey, at least you had a meaningful conversation with a prospect!

Couple more ideas: Describe the business itself. Is it a pawn shop? A jewelry store? What part of town--rich area or sketchy neighborhood?

Then when he says, ..or you're leaving in a casket," I would edit out the other things he says and go straight to your first response. "Leaving in a casket" is a definitive threat that gets weakened if you put more dialog in there. It sets up the tension beautifully, and I wouldn't dilute it by having him talk again until you respond to the casket line.

Take out the part where you were waiting 15 minutes. It just deflates the tension you've built up. Have the lady come out right after you got tossed and throw the stuff in the bin, or even on the street in front of your feet. This is where you use poetic license. Yes, the spine of the story should be true if it happened to you, but you can and should massage it to work better as a story. You are not delivering a news report, you are illustrating a point or lesson.

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This thread reminds me of a something I told my wife every day, early in my sales career, that I'd get at least 3 orders each and every day, without fail. "Get out", "Stay out", "Don't come back."

Oh, and Aaron, I meant to ask you, how do you really feel about this situation? I read the first 3 chapters, and it was a bit ambiguous.... :-)

Are you people kiddin' me??

Look, I try my best to be polite, respectable & kind, however... The hell with making the sale! If anyone ever puts their hands on me my like that they are taking a major chance that I might snap their arm like a twig.

I always do my best to show people the highest respect. I would like for them to reciprocate, but sometimes they don't ... and that's their right. I'll happily leave. I probably wouldn't want them as a client anyway.

That guy didn't show you even a basic level of civility & courtesy. That's his right. He can be a jerk if he chooses to be.

However when he put his hands on you, he crossed the line. No douche-bag will ever put their hands on me without serious repercussions.

I'm sorry, but I laughed so hard I cried, I mean I literally have tears streaming down my face.

If this story is real, you are now prepared to make millions in Offline Sales. Now is not the time to give up.

However, if you are serious about a career change, may I suggest comedy writer.

P.S. I had to give you a 'Thanks', for giving me my laugh for the month.

Post your experience on Yelp and then maybe sell him some reputation management services.

Sell him some cheap caskets.

My worst day in IM is reading this ridiculous post lol
I call B.S. on this story. I am sorry I just do not buy it !!

It's an attention thread, that's all !

But your fictional story telling is mighty good. You ought to go to Reader's Digest and submit something like this ! There are plenty of gullible readers there

If it happens again, when they ask who you are say "I am the danger. I am the one who knocks."

Are you kidding?

I would buy the movie/book of that story.

Claude would beat William Shatner in a fight.

Wow, a troll appears and everyone just rolls over and reponds. Haven't you people learned yet to just ignore the trolls and hypothetical situations and respond with silence?

Unless this is a joint venture where everyone is working together trying to outdo the OP.

Marvin

Kind of amazed where this one went. But what the hell I love crap like this....

First I don't agree with the shop owner for grabbing the guy in order to kick him out. There are ways to do that without touching anyone.

But and this is a big but.... if your first response to violence is to act back in violence you won't get far in life. Too many personal friends of mine have ended up with bad lives, in jail, and yes even dead because they didn't get that point.

I have a rule that was passed to me and I pass it to you.

Never get into a violent situation unless you are ready to seriously hurt and/or kill someone. Because once a violent situation has escalated you need to be prepared for that possibility.

You simply don't start or escalate something unless you are prepared for one of you to not walk away.

In the OPs situation all him "fighting back" would have done would have got him arrested (or dead if the threat had any truth to it).

EDIT: Removed a bunch of personal info on myself from this post.

I don't believe this story is true. Not for a minute. It could be BASED on something that happened, but this story did not happen as you wrote it.

But your point is still valid. What's the worst day you can have as a salesperson? People think that YOU can get rejected, but it's not really YOU, it's your message.

And think about some other people, on their worst day.

Soldiers and Marines are shot at every day. With the intent to be killed. THAT is something.

Sorry, I know this is an old thread but I could not help but bring it back into light. Mainly because some of you guys here were gullible enough to buy into this Troll thread with a made up story by guess what ?? A troll !!


Robert

I can't help but think of what Anthony Robbins said "Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach."

I dont know if that story was true or not.... But that was the best darn laugh Ive had in a very long time... thanks for that

And if it was true, you can only go up hill from there, just remember... never approach people that are on their way home from a hard days work... they dont want to be stopped by ANYTHING!

To the original poster.

Your post conveys a huge lack of common sense, basic social skills, and most of all... BALLS.

#1 - When a business has a closed sign lighting up... that generally means its CLOSED. People are trying to clean up, do paperwork, they are in a rush to go home, and no offense, but you are an idiot for walking in.

#2 - If you are going to walk in, you better have a plan. Either act like a customer and ask "are you open?" or have something else prepared to say, but whatever you do.. don't stand by the front door like an awkward mute until someone approaches you. If I was the owner I would have thought you were getting ready to rob the place. Again, that is just sheer stupidity.

#3 - Even after you had made 2 very stupid decisions, NEVER let someone put their hands on you under ANY circumstances (unless its the cops). If someone grabs your collar, you punch their hand away from your neck immediately then explain yourself or walk out. But when you allow someone to grab your collar for more than 1 second, you become their bitch and deserve to be treated like one.

I'm having a real hard time believing this story is true. But if it is true, then I agree, offline is definitely NOT for you.

There is a lot you can learn through practice. But you don't sound like you have the social or psychological capacity to do this for a living.

Most of the time I'd tell a person not to be hard on themselves, or to suck it up and get out there again. But you sound like the type of person who should just stay in your home. No offense. But this story is that bad.

-Red

I'm sorry, but his store was closed and he made it clear that he wanted,no one in his store. We cannot tell why, he was the way he was, possibly tired or had a bad day at the business.

You need to catch, these people in times that they DO want to talk and want to listen to what YOU have to say. The guy was an idiot, for grabbing you though. Don't let one bad apple, ruin it for you. You do get kudos, for staying around and not giving up though....

I can't believe any of you people are taking this post seriously. it's a good story, and that's about it

Nice story but you have to use better judgment then that !
As soon as the guy was rude and You sensed that he was not open to what I was offering You should have left and not attempted to sell them..

See even if he was interested in one of your services? If the timing is not right, it will not happen!
Try to avoid those kind of situations if I was you and do not try to talk to someone that is not interested to what you have to say at that time.

What might I have said if I had to say something when he asked me what I was doing there !
I would have said something like !

I drive by this place all the time and you always seem to be very busy and tonight I seen the door open and was wondering if I could some back here in either Thursday or Friday this week to give you your free trial ?

Then when he said free trial what free trial?
I now have him in a better position and I have given him a out and if he answers my question on which day !

I win because I didn't give him a choice of a no!

You will find that it's always easier to sell to someone that is interested in what you have to offer so try starting there..

Keep it up you will get there and remember when someone says no to you that it means you didn't give them enough information to say yes....

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What's funny is the amount of long responses to a clearly false story.
Like where he says he went out to wait to be picked up but ran a couple blocks only to be found by the store owner who just stared at him and drove off. LOL O.K What happened to his ride? Clearly this is a test of human psychology, like Mac said. cool story but it is just a story.

LOL that would be a product in itself "Give me 10 seconds and I will show you how to close any client"

Nice writing but, there's no way I would ever believe this story. No one is that retarded, sorry. Any human, even one with a double digit IQ, would walk out of that store immediately after what he said when you walked in, or never gone in, in the first place. I think you wrote this to get some response, and you've succeeded, congrats on that

Edit: with how many people that believe this story, Wafo might be the easiest place to troll, ever