Mega-Selling. Andrew Haynes

Survival In the Lean Years

There was only one possible way of avoidingmy inevitable dismissal on Mondayand that was to make a sale over the weekendI would have to do in two dayswhat I hadn’t been able to do in two months,otherwise my plan would be ruined

      You’ll soon see that I didn’t start off my insurance career with a bang. Rather, I struggled and made many mistakes along the way. But I did learn one thing in my first few months in the business – how to survive. In this chapter, I’ll tell you the story of how I got into the insurance business and some of my early struggles. I’ll show you the methods I used to survive, which I sum up in the phrase “Creative Survival.” Learning how to survive is not only important in the beginning of someone’s career, especially one in the insurance business, but also crucial throughout a career that – like mine – is bound to go through many cycles, some of them difficult. Bouncing back from tough weeks, months, or even tough years, is one of the key ingredients to success.

      So, I’ll begin this chapter with how I got my start in the insurance business. I’ll show you my four strategies for creative survival:

      1. See yourself today as you want to be tomorrow.

      2. Develop a plan and stick to it.

      3. Find the courage to open doors and close sales.

      4. Hold personal strategy sessions.

      Then I’ll end it with how, many years later, I managed to bounce back from a rather dark period in my life.

      Strategy 1: See Yourself Today As Tou Want to be Tomorrow

      The traffic cleared and Hans put the pedal to the floor. The half-open passenger window beside me started rattling from the wind and I leaned down to roll it up. I struggled with the stiff handle, finally managing to get the window close to the top, where it stuck, letting the air whistle in at a high pitch.

      “Hans,” I said, “you have to repair this window.”

      “I’d love to, David, believe me, but Mr. McDougall won’t part with the money – he’s a true Scot.”

      “Hey, watch it, Hans, I’m Scottish.”

      “Yeah, but you can’t keep a dollar in your pocket for more than a minute.”

      “I’m a big spender,” I said with a shrug.

      Hans laughed, “No offense, but isn’t big spending for wealthy people?”

      “I believe you’ve got to see it in your head first, then the money will follow. I see myself as a wealthy man who has a big house, a family, and takes vacations in warm places,” I said. “You can’t get anywhere in life by settling for what you have today.”

      “You’re never satisfied.”

      “No, I’m not, and that’s why I will be successful.”

      A big, tail-finned Chevy swerved in front of us and Hans slammed on the breaks, torpedoing me towards the windshield. I braced myself against the dash to avoid head injury as we screeched to a halt. As I slumped back into my seat, Hans sighed, “David, if you were wealthy you’d get yourself a car instead of trusting your life with me.”

      “I have my eye on a Thunderbird, white with a red interior,” I said staunchly.

      Strategy 2: Develop a plan and stick to it

      Even as a young man growing up in Scotland, I had always dreamed of being wealthy. But from a very early age, I knew that my dream would not become a reality unless I developed workable plans for achieving my goals and stuck to them.

      In Scotland I was making ends meet as an interior decorator and part-time tenor, but unfortunately my country was crumbling around me. I saw my dream of becoming wealthy slip away from me as a socialist government came into power and the country’s economy began to fail. Although some of my business associates at the time were content to watch their businesses dry up, I developed a plan for turning my life around.

      The first step in my plan was obvious – I needed to pull up my stakes and make a new start. I love my family, my homeland, and my heritage, but in 1957, I looked across the ocean to North America and saw a land where the economy was growing and opportunity abounded. I planned to transplant my interior decorating business to Canada.

      On March 10, 1957, I arrived in Toronto and knew immediately that I had made the right decision. I was 29 at the time and remember walking up University Avenue, the main business corridor, and seeing cranes and scaffolding, workmen buzzing around. I thought of Scotland with its half-empty buildings and the listless, aimless way people moved about on its streets. Here there was activity, the promise of wealth.

      How I Got Into the Paint-selling Business

      Living in a country where wealth was achievable, was a step in the right direction. But I knew that in order to become wealthy I would have to work for myself. So, my long-term plan was to start my own business. However, I literally had only $40 dollars in my pocket. So my short-term plan was to use my experience to find work in the interior decorating business in order to make ends meet.

      In the small living room of the apartment I rented above a laundromat, I began looking up local interior decorating companies in the phone book. The first few numbers I called were no longer in service, but finally I reached somebody at Stan and Associates, Exteriors & Interiors. Unfortunately, the woman who answered the phone told me they were now strictly in the exteriors business and planned to change their name to avoid phone calls like mine.

      “The department stores are doing it all,” she said, “Everybody has closed down but them. They’ve got a monarchy.”

      “Monopoly, you mean,” I corrected her.

      “Yeah, that’s right.”

      I thanked her for the wonderful news and riffled through the phone book, looking for the numbers of all the department stores. That proved to be a dead end. They were all sufficiently staffed and had a rather large pile of resumés. I was welcome to add mine to the bottom if I wished. But unless they planned on starting at the bottom and had a job for me in the morning, there wasn’t much point.

      There weren’t any opportunities in the interior decorating business, but I still thought that my short-term plan to leverage my experience made sense. I knew about color, finishes, and paints, so I made a list of jobs requiring that knowledge. I came up with painting, working in the office of a paint company, and selling paint. Because my long-term plan was to eventually work for myself, my choice was obvious. Selling paint would give me some control over how much I earned – the more I could sell, the more I would make.

      I started looking the next day, and it only took a few calls to find out that a company called McInley & McDougall wanted to expand their sales force. My interview with the tall and thin Mr. McDougall went well, but he turned out to be your stereotypical Scot – tighter than two coats of paint. He offered me a meager base and slim commissions, but I needed the job and it fit into my short-term plan, so I accepted.

      Selling paint for McInley & McDougall would be a great opportunity for me – I would be able to cut my teeth in sales – but it would only be a way station on the road to executing my long-term plan —to work for myself.

      Strategy 3: Find the Courage to Open Doors and Close Sales

      Simply following your plan doesn’t mean things will be easy – you will need the courage to stick to it. Selling turned out to be more difficult than I anticipated. I had to learn to overcome what I call “hotdoorknob syndrome” – the wave of nausea that washes over you right before knocking on a prospect’s door, or right before reaching for the phone to make a cold call. I realized that I wouldn’t be able to avoid the nausea – it always came – but I could, with courage, just ignore it. And that’s exactly what I did. Once I’d found the courage to approach prospects, I needed to find the courage to try creative approaches when conventional sales techniques failed me. Here’s a story where that courage