At work, especially, things just started clicking into place for me. It was as if every pitch I swung at was a home run, every putt dropped, every three-pointer swished, nothing but net. I had a hot hand. One good thing led to another.
Even buying the new Mercedes led to a major sales coup.
One morning I was sitting in the plush waiting room of the Harry Belkin Mercedes dealership in Allston, waiting for my new car to be prepped. I sat there for a good hour on a leather sofa, drinking a cappuccino from an automatic machine, watching Live with Regis and Kelly on their surround-sound TV.
And then I thought: how come they don’t have Entronics plasma screens in here, running features and ads on the latest Mercedes models? You know, beauty shots. Mercedes would pay for it. Then I started thinking, the Harry Belkin Company was the largest auto dealership in New England. They had BMW dealerships, and Porsche dealerships, and Maybach dealerships. Lots of others, too. Why not suggest the idea? Hell, supermarkets were doing it-why not high-end auto dealerships?
I did some research online and identified the right guy to talk to. He was the Senior Vice President for Marketing, and his name was Fred Naseem. I called him, pitched my idea, and he was immediately intrigued. Of course, the price was a concern, but isn’t it always? I pulled out my entire arsenal of tried-and-true sales tricks. I told him about how much added revenue the supermarket chains were generating using plasma screens to advertise at checkout lines. Waiting rooms are just like checkout lines, I told him. Everyone hates to wait. It’s a waste of time. But people like to be informed, to get new information. And be entertained. So entertain them and educate them-and sell them on the most exciting features of your new-model cars. Then I broke down the costs for him, only of course I never called it a “cost” or a “price” but an “investment.” Broke it right down to dollars per day invested versus what they’d generate. It was a no-brainer. Then I did the classic “yes-set” close-giving him a series of tie-down questions to which I knew he had to answer “yes.” Your customers are discerning, aren’t they? I’ll bet they appreciate the amenities you provide for them in the waiting room, like the coffee and the bagels, don’t they? They’d think the Entronics monitors looked cool up on the wall, don’t you think? Boom boom boom. Yes yes yes. Then: Is it accurate to say that your boss, Harry Belkin, would like to increase the average revenue generated in each of your auto dealerships? Well, what’s he gonna say? No? Then I moved in for the kill. Asked the Big Question: Are you ready to start making the additional profits that the Entronics monitors will surely generate for you?
The Big Yes.
When he wavered at the very end, as customers often do, I hit him with a couple of legendary closing tricks I’d picked up from my Mark Simkins CDs. I think it was the set called The Mark Simkins College of Advanced Closing. The sharp-angle close, where you maneuver them into making a demand you know you can meet. I told him that for this much inventory, delivery would probably be six months off. Well, now that he was all hot and bothered about getting those flat-screens into his dealerships, he wanted it all and he wanted it now. He wanted delivery in half that time. Three months.
That I could do. I could have done two months if he’d insisted. But I wanted him to demand something I could do. As soon as I agreed, I knew he as good as owned it.
Then I threw in the old “wrong conclusion” close. You say something you know is wrong so they have to correct you.
“So, that’s six hundred thirty-six-inch monitors and another twelve hundred fifty-nine-inchers, right?”
“No, no, no,” Freddy Naseem said. “The other way around. Six hundred fifty-nine-inchers and twelve hundred of the thirty-six.”
“Ah,” I said. “My mistake. Got it.”
He was mine. I loved the irony of selling to a guy who worked in auto sales. No one was safe.
He was stoked. In fact, this became his idea-that’s how I knew I had traction. He talked to Harry Belkin himself, called me back and said that Mr. Belkin was sold on the idea, and now it was only a matter of negotiating the price.
Sometimes I amaze myself.
A day later he called me back. “Jason,” he said, all excited. “I have some numbers for you, and I hope you have some numbers for me.” He told me how many plasma displays they wanted-huge ones for the walls of their forty-six dealerships, smaller ceiling-mounted ones. I didn’t get it. The number was a lot higher. And then he explained: it wasn’t just the BMW and Mercedes dealerships. It was the Hyundai and Kia dealerships too. Cadillac. Dodge. Everything.
I was almost at a loss for words. For me, this is unusual.
When I recovered, I said, “Let me put some numbers together for you and circle back to you tomorrow. I’m not going to waste your time. I’m going to get you the best price I can get.”
Everything seemed to be falling my way.
Except Gordy. He was still Gordy. The biggest drawback to my new job was that it was all Gordy all the time. He had me coming in at 7:00 A.M. and would regularly storm into my office with one complaint or another. He’d IM me, sounding urgent, summon me to his office, and it would turn out to be nothing. Notes for a presentation he wanted me to look at. A spreadsheet. Whatever trivial thing he happened to think was important at that second.
I did my share of complaining about him to Kate. She listened patiently. One night I came home after work and she handed me a white plastic bag from a bookstore. It held CDs for me to play to and from work: How to Work for Bullies and Tyrants at the Office and Since Strangling Isn’t an Option.
“Gordy’s not leaving,” she said. “You’re just going to have to learn to deal with him.”
“Strangling,” I said. “Now, there’s an idea.”
“Sweetie,” she said, “how come you never ask me about my day?”
She was right; I rarely did, and now I felt intensely guilty. “Because I’m a guy?”
“Jason.”
“Sorry. How was your day?”
When the Harry Belkin deal seemed to be far enough along, I stopped in to see Gordy and tell him the good news. He nodded, asked a few questions, didn’t seem all that interested. He handed me the monthly expense reports and told me to go over them. “Two months,” he said. “Two months till the end of Q2.” Entronics operated on the Japanese fiscal year, which sometimes got confusing.
I glimpsed at the expense report, and said, “Jesus, the Band of Brothers spends a lot on T &E, huh?” That’s Travel & Entertainment-hotels, travel, meals.
“See?” he said. “It’s crazy. I’ve been meaning to crack down on abuses of corporate credit cards for some time. But now that I’ve got one throat to choke, I want you to come up with a new T &E policy.”
He wanted me to be the bad guy. Why not you? I thought. Everyone hates you already.
“Got it,” I said.
“One more thing. Time to rank ’n’ yank.”
I knew what he meant-stack-rank everybody and fire the underperformers-but was he saying he wanted me to do it?
“You’re kidding.”
“No one said it was gonna be easy. You and I get to rate our guys on a five-point scale, and then you’re gonna get rid of the underperformers. Up ’n’ out.”
“The underperformers?” I said, wanting to hear him say it aloud.
“The C players get fired.”
“Bottom ten percent?”
“No,” he said with a fierce stare. “Bottom third.”
“Third?”