The salesman in all of us

I remember this TV commercial when I was a kid: A guy in a white polo shirt with a blue tie, singing, "I’m gonna knock on your door, ring on your bell, tap on your window too..." I believe it was a commercial for an appliance brand and the guy was a salesman, going door-to-door. I remember telling myself back then, "Geez, what a pathetic loser. I’ll never do that."

Never did I realize that would be my fate. These days, almost daily, I go knocking on people’s doors, ringing their bells, and tapping their power windows too. Oh yeah, I also, send e-mails and text messages every so often – all in the name of selling.

I know I sound like I am whining. Actually, I am not. To be perfectly honest, I am very happy about how things turned out. I never realized that I had a salesman in me. OK fine. I am not exactly doing door-to-door selling. I am in the media business, selling media, that is – selling TV airtime to companies. Of course, I do other vital things in the office, such as cleaning the water dispenser and figuring out how the stupid paper shredder works.

But at the end of the day, I am measured not by the sparkle of the water dispenser, or how much scratch paper I shred. I am measured by how much money I brought into the company.

I can try to sugarcoat what I do – external affairs expert, business development adviser, deal-making agent, marketing specialist, etc. But the long and short of it is this: I sell.

And I am not alone. As a matter of fact, all of us sell. All of us are salesmen. The only difference is that some of us do it for a living, while some of us, well, just do it as part of human nature.

I came to realize this recently when I bumped into a friend of mine, Rose, who works for General Motors.

GM’s office is just beside ours, so Rose and I always bump into each other along the hallway. Whenever we see each other, I normally say, "Hey, wazzup? Let’s get together naman," and she answers, "Hey, wazzup? Yes, let’s get together naman." One time, we got into an elevator together, and we said our standard wazzup lines to each other. But then, we’re on the 33rd floor so it was a long ride down. So we had to say something else. She asked me, "How’s MTV?"

And I said, "Cool as ever. How’s GM?" And she went, "Great. The Venture is selling really well." I became very curious so I asked, "The Venture? The family van? How is it?" She answered, "It’s excellent! You want to try it? We can lend it to you for a weekend if you want." And I said, "Sure!"

And so, last weekend, she lent me this real nice metallic green Venture. I drove it around town and I was really so impressed with the ride and the nice ambience it had. I felt like this cool family man when I was driving it. I was so impressed that I told my colleagues about it and I let them ride, too.

We were all raving about what a nice feel it had. And my officemates and I started asking things like "Wonder how much this is?" and "Wonder if they have this and that color?" and "Where can I buy this?"

Amazing! In a matter of a few days, there were at least five people who were inclined on buying a Venture, including myself. And all because of that casual conversation with Rose, whose job in GM is not really to sell cars to people. But because of that small sales talk in the elevator, I am now more inclined to buy a Venture than I was when I got in the elevator.

That same day I met Rose, I had dinner with a good friend of mine, Atty. Mike Toledo in his new restaurant Azzuro at Legaspi Village. Mike and I have so much in common – we are both lawyers, we both worked in ACCRA at some point in our lives (although he was there way ahead of me, ha!), we are both in media, we both dabbled in newscasting, and we both had the chance to work with at least one resident in Malacañang – he with former President Erap, and me, as consultant for sports of the First Gentleman.

He casually mentioned to me about Camp John Hay, and told me about Camp John Hay Manor and the Forest Cabins. Being a newscaster, he has a knack for being very explicit in describing things, and the way he described the beautiful developments there, I became so consumed. The pictures spoke for themselves. When I went home, I told my wife, "Hey, you know, we should go to Camp John Hay." I realized that Mike’s casual mention of Camp John Hay made me want to visit the place. And in fact, I have decided that once I get the chance to go to Baguio, I will stay in Camp John Hay.

Mike may not have realized it – in effect, he sold me an idea and I bit, all because of a casual conversation.

Both Rose and Mike are not sales persons by profession. But whether they know it or not, they are. And whether you know it or not, and whether you admit or deny it, you are a sales person, too.

All of us make a sales pitch everyday. When a teenage kid tries to ask for permission from his parents to go out, he makes a sales pitch. "Mom, please allow me na. I am just going to mall, I will be back by 11. I will be with my classmate lang."

The kid is telling his mom why his proposition should be accepted (and bought). And when you tell a friend, "You know I watched Charlie’s Angels and it’s good, you should watch it," – without you realizing it, you are acting as a sales person for the film distributor.

In that respect, the only difference between you and the person who sells movie tickets is that the latter makes a living out of his pitch, while you, on the other hand, don’t get anything out of saying something good about Demi Moore’s new body. When you send your resume to a company, it’s the same thing – you are selling your credentials and skills. And when you are courting a girl and you are trying to convince her that you only look like a frog, and that in reality you are her Prince Charming – you are selling. Sure, you may be fooling yourself but hey, you can’t deny what you are. You are a salesman.

Did you know that even our Lord was a salesman. He pitched His message of forgiveness, love, faith, and salvation – and that through Him, the whole world will be saved. He even said that if you eat His body and drink His blood, you would gain salvation. Wow! If you really think about it, these are really radical ideas, especially coming from a carpenter. But then you realize what a good salesman our Lord was. Billions of people have bought the idea. Of course, it can be argued that there is something divine about how we all believe in these teachings. But still, it’s a testament to good salesmanship because even on an intellectual level, His teachings are logical and it all makes sense. And a lot of us do believe what He said 2,000 years ago. Of course, some of us just say we buy the idea but really don’t. Fact is, our Lord was a salesman with the best product – Himself and salvation. He was the best there ever was.

If you are a salesman in a company, don’t label yourself as "just a salesman." Because believe me, you’ve good company – the whole world.

* * *

Thanks for your letters, folks! You may e-mail me at rodnepo@yahoo.com.