Aston Martin or Porsche?

I'm not a big car guy. In fact, I HATE car analogies. I hate those cocky salesmen who come up to you and say, "let's say you're going to a car dealer. You see a Ford and a Ferrari. What would you rather get?" Maybe that's a good way to sell your product to someone else, but definitely not to me.

I'm not a big car guy. I never knew what a Maserati or what a Bentley was. All I knew was that the higher the MPG, the less you'd have to pay in terms of gas costs. In terms of how smooth the car drives, or how fast it can go, or how sleek and cool it looks... I really don't care.

So if you didn't know, what I do at my Wells Fargo internship is simple - I cold call. Haha, funny right? Cold-calling is one of the most ridiculously hard jobs in the world. Not because it's inherently difficult to do (which it's not, you just have to read a script), but because the mental pressure and anxiety over being rejected is sometimes so oppressive that you can't even pick up the phone.

Anyway, this post isn't about cold-calling. This is about this one conversation I had with this hotshot real estate broker once upon a time. I called him and told him about us, and I told him, we specialize in real estate agents. He said, that doesn't sound appealing to me. I said, you may not have a lot of money right now, but maybe 5 years down the line when you're earning a ton, you'll going to need someone to manage your money. He said, how do you know I don't have a lot of money?

Turns out, he was the real estate agent who brokered an entire office for Paulson & Co, as well as doing some other hotshot deals. He asked me, "what's better, an Aston Martin or a Porsche?"

Everything screamed at me to say Aston Martin, because it simply sounded more luxurious. But since I had never really heard of Aston Martin, I said Porsche. Then the guy hung up on me. That really pissed me off that day, because I had spent over 10 minutes on the phone with this guy, and I really thought he was going to be a lead.

I told my boss about it and we had a good laugh about it afterwards. My boss loves guys like that. He can actually get along with them pretty well. Fast forward a few weeks (almost a month), my boss one day calls me out of the blue, and says,

"Hey, Lionel, Maserati or Bentley?" I said, "uh....... Maserati?" He said "Are you sure?" I said "uh... no, maybe Bentley." He replied "You can't give me two. Choose one." Finally I said, "Ok, Maserati." He chuckled over the phone and said, "that's right, guess who I just called?"

I laughed. "Our friend over at ____?" "Yea, I called him, and the first thing I said was 'Ferrari or Maserati?" Turns out the guy actually had a good impression of me, and he told my boss that he wants to meet.

That phone call made my day. Just goes to show you, never give up on a lead, even if you feel like there's no hope left. People are more affable than you think.

Now, I'm just as hard on other salespeople as that guy was on me. Honestly, if you're a sales guy, you gotta be able to relate to the person, and make them feel like you're on THEIR side.

Like for example, yesterday, I was talking to some Verizon FiOS people who were in my building. They had recently installed the service and were ready to open some accounts. So naturally I went up to them and said, "What's the lowest price you have?"

They said 55$ per month for 15MB D/L and 5 MB upload. I said, that's too expensive. Then this salesman comes out, and obviously, tries to convince me. He asks me what I have right now. I said, Time Warner Cable, but it sucks. He nodded knowingly, and said, "Let's pretend you're going to a car shop. You see a-..."

I stopped him right there. I said, "I HATE car analogies." He took a different track. He used another terrible analogy that I simply hated, and then he said, "it's only 22 more dollars per month than cable." I asked him, how much is that per year. He didn't know. He had to take out a calculator to do 55 * 12.

Now, I'm no math genius so I wouldn't be able to do that calculation on the spot either. But as the sales guy, shouldn't you know off the top of your head, what that # is? You should spit out that 660 the minute it's asked.

So he asked me, what is my major. I was wearing my work clothes - dress shirt and suit pants. What major do you THINK I would be in? He said IT. Clearly this guy doesn't know jack. He asked me where I'm from. I asked him, what do you think? He said, I don't know, California? I said, no, I mean, what ethnicity do you think I am. He said the stupidest answer I've ever heard. "American?"

Honestly, have you never met an Asian before?

So I was hard on him. But honestly if you're going to be that much of a slacker when trying to sell someone, not even being able to figure out what they do, what makes them tick, and have to resort to using cliche car analogies in order to make your selling point, then you don't deserve my business.