I was walking through the center of Barcelona yesterday. It’s been magically pleasant weather here — warm, breezy, sunny, clear.
I stopped at an intersection to wait for the light.
I saw a girl who stopped on the side of the street opposite me. I’m guessing she was in her late 20s. She had big curly hair, a white summer dress that stopped halfway down her thighs, and black leather boots that reached up to her knees.
And she was looking at me. Furtively. Here and there.
Of course, when the light changed, and as we passed each other on the crosswalk, she stared straight ahead so I couldn’t catch her eye.
That’s okay.
I wheeled around, waited for her to reach the sidewalk, then jogged up in front of her, smiled, and held up my hands to make it clear I have something to say. She took out her headphones with a look of pleased surprise.
If you’ve read my new 10 Commandments book, you know how a street approach like this goes.
I complimented the girl, saying she looks nice, and added something about the boots and dress. She laughed.
Since she seemed ready to talk, that’s exactly what we did.
I guessed she’s French. No, Catalan.
She tried to guess where I’m from (not easy). She was focusing so hard that I put my hand on her shoulder to reassure her it’s okay to guess wrong. She didn’t mind my doing that.
We kept the conversation going for a few minutes during which time we covered the usual gamut of personal stuff along with a bit of teasing and giggling.
In the end I said, “Look I gotta go. But another night, I’d like to invite you out for a drink.”
Suddenly, the girl grew flustered and confused. “Oh ok, but I should tell you, I have a boyfriend, just in case you were thinking…”
“I was thinking,” I said. “But it’s okay.” And it really was. It was nice and positive to talk to her. It made me feel better and loosened me up. And the whole interaction took something like five minutes. We said goodbye and that was that.
And now I’m gonna talk about business, and particularly sales, crass though it might seem.
If you have read my new 10 Commandments book, you know I make an analogy between picking up girls (what I was attempting to do yesterday, unsuccessfully) and other fields, like standup comedy, hypnosis, and, relevant for us today, direct, in-person, nose-to-nose, toes-to-toes sales.
I don’t know if you do sales calls. I’ve done a few on the back of this email newsletter, for people who were interested in coaching I was offering at the time. In my previous career as a freelance copywriter, I did probably a hundred or more sales calls — it was part of my standard process for getting copywriting clients.
If you’ve ever done sales calls, I wonder if the following sounds familiar:
A very promising prospect expresses interest in what you have. So you get on a sales call.
You cover the usual gamut of business stuff along with a bit of getting to know each other and friendly banter.
The prospect seems ready for you to close her. So you lay out your offer including the price. Suddenly your prospect grows flustered and confused. “Oh ok,” she says, “but I should tell you, I don’t have that kind of money to spend…”
Yes, some “I don’t have that kind of money” prospects say it as a ruse, just like some “I have a boyfriend” girls don’t really have a boyfriend.
But in many cases, it’s really true. Your prospect, even though she looked very promising, and even though she probably had a good sense of what you charge, just doesn’t have the money to pay you.
You see why I make an analogy between this and my failed pickup situation yesterday.
Of course, there are also differences between the two.
Failed sales calls tend to take up to an hour to get through, as opposed to five minutes. They are likely to be done in your office over gloomy Zoom, instead of on a sunny Barcelona street. And they don’t leave you feeling nice and energized afterwards, but are mainly a frustrating and draining waste of time.
If you do sales calls regularly, and if the situation above is one you experience from time to time, then I have an offer for you.
Hit reply. I have a couple of questions I hope you can help me out with. In exchange, I’ll tell you about a pair of X-ray goggles, and where to get ’em. These X-ray goggles allow you to peer into places you maybe shouldn’t be peering, like your prospect’s wallet.
The X-ray goggles I have in mind allow you to only get on calls with people who can afford what you’re selling, so you minimize the time you waste.
And if you do get on a call with someone who says, “I should tell you I don’t have that kind of money to spend,” with these goggles you will know to press a bit, because odds are, it’s a ruse, and one that your prospect hopes you will expose.