My first few years in sales were a long, hard road.
I pounded the pavement for months, educating every company I could find about the marvelous benefits of my hot new technology. I crisscrossed the Chicago area in my beige Ford Taurus seeking anyone who would listen to me.
I sponsored lunch & learns, Dog & Pony Shows, demonstrations… catered lunches, gave impassioned presentations… I pumped myself up in the mirror every day. “You’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and people like you.”
I reassured myself, “Dude, one of these days all these deals are gonna start popping and yer gonna get yerself some mighty fine commission checks.”
At one point I started to notice that every time I went to see a customer, I would see a little book on his desk. My competition had written a booklet and they were offering it for free in all the trade magazines etc.
Their handy little book was going out everywhere. It was saturating the industry. My competition was cherry-picking the best customers and wowing them with great demonstrations and credibility.
One by one, all those “awesome deals” I was about to reel in started falling apart.
Again and again customers would wanly smile and shake my hand. “Perry, we decided to go with BRAND X instead. But thanks for all the information and advice. It helped us a lot, really it did.”
You’re welcome, sir. Glad to have provided the wonderful education and free doughnuts.
I would drive home and tell my long-suffering wife I’d lost another sale.
Ain’t it fun, living out “Death Of A Salesman” every day? I did not get one single technology sale, even though I broke the ice and did a year of costly missionary work.
One of the most powerful spells your competitors can ever hold against you is to seem like they’re “everywhere.” Nobody can go anywhere in your industry without hearing their name repeatedly… bumping into their information… getting their perspective instead of yours.
If you’re on the negative side of that equation, you do the hard, back-breaking missionary work and SOMEBODY ELSE swoops in at the last minute and steals the sale.
If you’re on the positive side of that equation, other people do the hard, back-breaking missionary work and YOU swoop in at the last minute and steal the sale.
Which way do you want it?
In days to come I will be offering a new approach that blankets your market with proof that YOU are the guy or gal to do business with. Your rivals do the missionary work and *you* get the rewards.
I challenge you to make a decision that you’re going to do everything in your power to win the positioning game every time. After you’ve experienced life on the good side of the credibility tracks, you’ll never want to have it any other way.
Perry Marshall
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About the Author
Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.
He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.
27 Comments on “Years of "Missionary Work" & Nothing to Show For It”
Hi Perry,
Thanks for this informative article. Without perseverance and consistency, success will never shine upon you.
Hi Perry,
Thank you for the very inspiring article. It is very short, concise and straight to the point. I feel that persistency and consistency in any endeavour are one of the keys to success as well.
Thanks.
Edmund
Very inspiring, thanks for this, this will help a lot of online marketers.
Great Article.
Positioning yourself correctly is one of the best lessons I have ever learned.
I’ve got 2 kids to show for my years of “Missionary Work”.
Right on Perry!
You don’t know how right you are. I go thru the same feeling with some of my websites. Get the site up first, post original content, do all of the missionary work as you put it. Only to find the competition almost copy my sites word for word and offer 1 extraordinary bonus in the end. Of which I don’t do and they steal the sale.
It is frustrating to be able to stay out front of everyone else and lose out in the end.
No more…My goal is to stay #1 and allow the competition to play catch up until it’s too late.
Thanks for the inspiration Perry
This is amazingly frustrating to your competitors. At my last company, I unwittingly did this on a worldwide basis(found out about our amazing presence after-the-fact.)
Never underestimate the power of giving customers exactly what they are looking for, and anticipating their educational needs.
Hi Perry
Very interesting post…
I’m looking forward to learn “how to win the positioning game”.
Regards
Henning
I think I was the swooped but now I shall try and be the swooper, if that makes sense, Sally :)
Sorry for the off topic comment. (You do not need to approve it, just bringing this to you attention as you might find it interesting if you haven’t already seen it. (Might make a good basis for a blog post and if you actually called him, I am sure he’d take your call.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FRwCs99DWg&feature=player_embedded
Mark
Thanks for this wonderful post. I can still remember the days where I go to road shows and try to sell my $400 skin care product to every lady who walks past me.
It was hard work, standing from morning to night, and I don’t get paid unless I close the sale. That continues for months until I finally throw in the towel and look for better ways to market my product.
It was a simple 1 page site hosted on blogspot and I get phone calls asking for my product, when I still in my bed! I never imagined by just changing the marketing strategy, the result can be so great.
Sure is a long road but look where you are now! Your a household name in this industry now! Looking forward to reading more about your journey on the long road to success.
I love reading your text..you can feel the pain, I guess thats why they call it the missionary position! (Sorry!)
The last position you want to be in if you’re in sales!
Seriously that line “Sorry Perry..were going with brand X” I could almost see the puppy being taken away and put back in the pet store, because mom & dad can’t afford it. (cue sad movie music)
Great post
Your Koolaid, never looked so tempting!
Searchengineman
Your email arrived just on time when i was feeling discouraged.You should be next Zig Ziglar,you have a way of inspiring us with your real life stories.Looking forward to your series, Perry.
To the victor the spoils…
Sometimes you have just got to be ruthless and take the GOLD and if that means letting other people do ALL the work, then so be it.
It does work the other way to!
These days we are just totally bogged down with information etc.
We just want to do what we have to with minimum work and fuss to get from a to b…and YES, i do want my market to know and believe that i am the solution, the person with the missing jigsaw puzzle that they are looking for.
As a young engineer, when I first started in sales, I wasn’t sure whether I was a rep or an unpaid consultant. Only 20 years later do I understand the importance of being both. One day my sales mentor told me about something he called “walk away power”. He explained that until I had the conviction to walk away from a sale knowing that my customer was genuinely making a mistake by not buying from me that I would never be able to demonstrate enough confidence to ask him about his true objections. The concept sounded downright irrational against the backdrop of the elation I felt just from being able to win my first sales appointment. It was in the fifth year of my sales career that I was successful enough to allow myself to finally take that tact and learn what he was talking about.
Good article, I felt the same way. I did the mirror thing every morning too.
Nicolás Laverde
Thanks Perry for this uplifting message today. Some days it gets harder and harder to keep telling yourself to keep going when all you have to show for it frustration.
This was the second wind push I needed.
You might not have a been a great door to door salesman, but you’re one heck of a story teller. You had me hooked from the first sentence.
David
P.S. And if it’s of any interest to anyone, yes…I was a Christian missionary and I knocked doors for a long time. It was hard work…but in the end, it was well worth my efforts. It made me who I am today. :-)
Hey Perry,
Thanks again for the uplift. Working from home, with only the dog to talk to, gets a little lonely. You’re right on as always about the daily challenge when it comes to convincing each prospect that your solution is the best.
I’m sure you will provide some insights during your series of posts that will shine some light on a subject that is near and dear to all of us dying sales-folk.
Can’t wait to hear, “The rest of the story…”
PERRY… HOW ABOUT! YOU HAVE SOMETHING NO ONE ELSE HAS & CAN’T
COMPETE WITH??????AND EVERY-HUMAN-BEING CAN NOT LIVE (WITHOUT)
IT??? & NOBODY BELIEVES YOU??? HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH THAT? WITH
ALL THE EXPERENCE YOY HAVE HAD!!!I HAVE ALREADY CONTACTED JOHN
ABOUT HELPING WITH OUR WHITE-PAPER.WE HAVE IN HAND, A BREAKTHROUGH
IN CLEAN (WATER)TECHNOLOGY IT IS NOT A FAD.NOT A BOTIQUE TECHNOLOGY,
IT IS A GAME CHANGER! SOME CALL IT THE (ANTI-CHRIST) TO TRADITIONAL
DE-SALANATION METHODS!!!
…BOB…
Another great post, thank you Perry, I love your work.
This post inspired me to scan the Spark notes of ‘Death of Salesman’ and the tragedy of the story raised a question for me: What is it that every sales rep wants to sell?
Answer: A product that simply by virtue of its availability has a steady stream of buyers, and of course a great commission.
Lottery tickets excluded, this is a fantastic ideal rarely seen. It is similar to the competing values that appear when purchasing a small car. Small car on the outside, but still roomy inside.
IMHO marketing is all about making the best judgments, even with imperfect information, and validating then optimizing these in the real world.
Easier said than done however, unless you’re Steve Jobs, and even then having Perry onside would certainly help.
yeah saying “no problem glad i could be of help in you choosing someone else’s product” is a tough pill to swallow. As much as I’d like to blow up in their face I never burn me bridges. There are fewer things more horrible than wasted effort, as small business owners we want to get results from everything single thing we do, we can’t afford to waste anything. That is probably why a lot of us don’t try hard enough for fear of it being a waste. If you can find a system that gets those booklets out onto those tables and cranks the handles on those sales wouldn’t life be sweet. Perry please tell me what it is! Shaun.
Hi Perry,
Thanks for the great article.
I’m a missionary. No really I do Christian Missionary work along with running an internet business to support my charity work.
I’ve also been caught of in the trap of doing “missionary work” … with nothing to show for it.
That applies to both my Christian missionary work and also my online business.
I’ll take the positive side of the equation because I don’t want to waste my time.
It’s time to see fruit, not just plant a tree.
Looking forward to your series, Perry.
I am also interested in Greg’s lifestyle. You seem to get what a lot of people don’t: doing good is easier, and more productive, if you have a good means of financial support to accomplish it. Kudos.
I’m looking forward to the series, Perry.
Right on Perry.
As a salesperson for 30 years it is a lonely road in the beginning and you just don’t get it. No matter how many times you read Napoleon Hill and Zig Ziglar the sand gets kicked in the face. To further complicate I have my own nurtured set of AmWay tapes and some great stories. Your emails are always read with enthusiasm as straight talk from a good MidWesterner. Thanks for all you do. I just crossed the 50 age bracket and have concluded that life is abnout the stories we make and create so when the end is near we can look back, laugh, cry and reflect.
All the best
Nat