HOW SALES SKILLS GOT ME A WIFE

4/27/06 HOW SALES SKILLS GOT ME A WIFE

Well, sales skills didn't exactly get me a wife, but it certainly helped. In my first job out of college, the vice president would let me sit in and listen to his sales calls, and occasionally give me little nuggets of wisdom. I'm sure he'd listened to some of my calls, and would adjust his suggestions accordingly. One of my downfalls was my dislike of silence. I'd ask a client a question, and if there was any silence whatsoever, I would jump in with a potential answer. "Do you know when you'd like to have your event?" Half-second pause with no answer. "Because the early spring is a great time for a kick-off event." And I would roll into all these options without even knowing what a client actually wanted. They could have wanted a fall rock concert on the moon, for all I knew, and I would be sitting there plugging away with Yanni tribute act or something. So I'm sitting there in the VP's office, and he tells me, "I ask a question, and then I," here he folded his hands, leaned back in his chair, paused a few seconds, and said, "wait." Over the weeks and months I agonizingly made my way past my fear of a few moments of silence, and it certainly helped in my ability to listen to clients.

A couple years later I was out on a date with a gorgeous girl, and as we were riding in the car, I asked her a question. I mentally thought back to what my old boss had told me, and forced myself to wait for an answer, instead of filling in the silence. And here I learned a very valuable thing about the woman who would become my wife: She actually thinks before she speaks! Incredible! Not like me, whose natural tendency is to speak before, during, and after thinking. This little habit allowed me to get to know her so much better than I would have, and now we're living happily ever after (at least that's what I hear).