How to Be A Sales Superstar: Break All the Rules and Succeed While Doing it

Chapter 12. I'll Take Door Number Two—Selection Time

We had a saying in the automobile business: "There's an ass for every seat." This simply means that people are different, and they have wide varieties of tastes. Something that you may think is ugly or does not make sense might be beautiful and make perfect sense to someone else.

My family and I attend a Unity Church in Cincinnati. One Sunday, we were given a sermon by a visiting preacher named Damon Lynch. Reverend Lynch had gained a lot of notoriety during and after the Over-The-Rhine Riots in Cincinnati in 2001. He had become a spokesperson for large segments of the African American community in the inner city of Cincinnati.

Lynch is an understandably controversial figure, and many segments of the city's population consider his messages divisive. However, his sermon that Sunday morning struck a chord with me in many ways. Reverend Lynch discussed the same concept that we touched on with our oft-used industry phrase—how different people can see the same things in many different ways, based upon their life experiences or culture. Everyone has his or her own kaleidoscope.

This message led me to think of customers and their kaleidoscopes as well. You must listen, step back, and—as Claude Hopkins said in his book My Life in Advertising and Scientific Advertising (McGraw Hill, 1966)—"You must enter into the conversation already going on in the customers head." So much of selling is actually allowing the customer to buy. I often say ...