I was sitting in the Orlando International Airport one day waiting at the gate to board my departing flight.
A guy sat next to me and suddenly, his cellular phone rang and he became engaged in a conversation with his teenage daughter about going off to college. He looked confused and frustrated when he hung up.
He loosened his tie, shrugged his shoulders and asked, "Do you have a teenage ..." and tried to rip his chin off with his bare hand.
I raised two fingers and uttered, "Whew, ah ... whoa!" I looked at my shoes and shook my head.
We sat there looking at each other until we were able to speak in whole sentences again.
My new best friend, Rob, told me his daughter just finished applying to college. She was afraid she wouldn't get into her preferred schools because of her GPA and test scores. At one point, he said, she became so upset she gave up hope and decided not to apply at all.
Rob shared some wisdom with her that gave her renewed hope and enthusiasm. He told her that after he graduated from college, he went to work as a sales representative for an office equipment company in Chicago. He was scared to death about having to sell against the seasoned salespeople who worked for his competitors. As a brand new salesman, he admitted his sales skills left a lot to be desired. In addition, the copy machines he sold were better quality and more expensive than most of his competitors', but he didn't know how to justify the higher price. To top it off, 10 other companies sold similar products in the region.
One morning he received a formal request for pricing from a local hospital. The request: Submit his price for 20 copy machines. Rob told his daughter he jumped up from his desk and ran down the hall to his sales manager's office in a panic. His sales manager told him to calm down and proceeded to give him a lesson in human nature and statistics he'd never forget.
"First of all, you don't need to worry about all of the competitors, since only about 80 percent of them are likely to respond to the customer's request," his manager said.
The manager continued, "And of the eight who respond, probably only 75 percent of them will submit their responses on time. The two late ones will be disqualified for missing the deadline. Finally, only 65 percent of the remaining six who respond on time will include everything the customer asked for. Two will forget to include something like the cost for extended warranty, installation, customer power requirements or an accessory the customer will need."
"To win against six of your competitors," his manager concluded, "all you need to do is turn in a complete package on time. You'll beat them before a single response is reviewed. Then focus on competing with the other three. That's assuming, of course, you're one of the final four and not one of the other six."
Rob suggested to his daughter that statistics regarding high school graduates applying to college probably follow a similar pattern. If 1,000 high school graduates begin the application process online, only about 800 will finish, only 600 of those will submit on time and only 400 will send everything the college asks for. He told her to be sure to apply on time and make sure her SAT and ACT scores, as well as her essay and letters of recommendation, were included in the submission. Rob finished by saying she would wind up beating out all of the kids with better grades and scores who were in the group of 600 who didn't even make the first cut.
Eight weeks later she was accepted to three of her five choices of colleges, Rob proudly reported. She was on cloud nine until today, he added, when it dawned on her she would be leaving her boyfriend behind and losing her nonrefundable gym membership and six months of prepaid tanning sessions.
Dan Norman is a sales performance expert, a professional speaker and the author of Top Ten Selling. He can be reached at www.toptenselling.com or 407-566-9741.
