Rate this article:
Average rating:
Total votes: 234
Losing a million-dollar check would cause most of us to lose sleep, and public speaking is frightening enough without falling off the stage. Read how salespeople withstood these horrors and lived to sell another day.
Million-Dollar Vanishing Act
Monster.com member drc4u files this report:
I worked for six months to close a multimillion-dollar sale. I was walking on air when I picked up the million-dollar deposit check from the client. After getting three executive signatures on it, I rushed back to the office to call my CEO to let him know the deal was done. And there, I discovered I had lost the check. I told my CEO about losing the check, and his response was rather simple: "How are you going to fix it?"
My assistant and I virtually tore my car and office apart, retracing every step. No luck. The next morning, after rehearsing all night what I was going to say, I mustered the courage to call the VP in charge of this project on the client side. As I started to explain this nightmare, my assistant discovered the check on a high shelf behind my desk. In the end, everyone got a big laugh out of it.
The Accidental Salesperson replies: Thanks for welcoming us to your nightmare. Oh, that's right, you didn't sleep that night -- that makes it even worse.
Stand Still
Monster.com member jeannie3 had a public speaking nightmare:
I had a very important presentation to give to more than 1,500 people in the audience, and among them were VIPs from my corporate office. Because I'm fairly short, I had to stand on a stool behind the podium.
About two minutes into my presentation the heel of my pump broke. I slipped off the stool, bounced off the side of the stage and landed on the concrete floor. With a bruise the size of a pineapple on my thigh, I managed to laugh even though I wanted to cry. Fortunately, people found humor in my misfortune, which enabled me to hobble back up to the stage wearing one shoe with half a heel and finish my presentation.
By the time I reached my car, my cell phone was ringing. My boss had already heard from some of the executives who where in the meeting. "What's the matter?" he asked. "Don't we pay you enough to buy decent shoes?
The Accidental Salesperson quips: Speakers generally try to pump people up. Way to get back up there. Audiences want you to do well.
Invoices, Trickery and Trash Bins
Monster.com member lindyb, discovered the benefits of making lots of copies:
My men and I had screwed up one particular job for an intermediate Texas oil company that had more cash than good sense. The man in charge of operations was a notorious hard guy and a no-nonsense type of fellow. So I made one set of invoices for the actual hours I had on the job and another set of hours I thought the man in charge would think was what the company should pay.
When I walked into the office, he asked me if these were the invoices for the particularly bad job. I responded that they were, and before I could say anything else, he yanked them out of my hand and proceeded to chew me out. He signed one invoice and then threw the next one in the trash. He continued this process until the entire stack was completely gone. These invoices totaled about $250,000 dollars and represented a large portion of my cash flow for the month.
After I left his office and cooled down, I added up the invoices. Because there were two sets of invoices together, I actually came out at a very good rate with a nice healthy profit margin.
The Accidental Salesperson replies: Imagine how much harder it would have been to watch those invoices go in the trash if they weren't duplicates.
